Intro to Human Geography

In today's class we talked about visualizing population.  We watched a youtube video on Hans Rosling and he was trying to animate data.  We saw in the video that in 1810 almost every country died younger than forty and made less than $4,000 a year.  And now, if a country's life expectancy was under forty and you made less than $4,000 a year, you are considered poor and sick and above that is rich and healthy.  During the industrial revolution, the western countries went up in GDP per capita and life expectancy.  WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic killed millions and millions of people which affected the population and life expectancy.  By 2009, most country's went from the poor and sick category to the rich and healthy.  Tomorrow we are having a quiz on the video that we watched in class today.  I think I'll do pretty good on it because I understood the video and everything we were talking about today.

Today in class, we learned what a population pyramid is.  A population pyramid is a graph that shows the amount of population there is of each age.  It's also divided by gender and the age increases by 5 year increments.  Girls are always on the right and boys are always on the left.  Ages 0-14 are referred to as the pre-reproductive age.  Ages 15-44 are referred to as the reproductive age and ages 45 until death are referred to as the post-productive ages.  This is only for girls though, boys are not referred to any of these.  The shape that the lines make on a population pyramid show whether a country is growing quickly or slowly or decreasing quickly or slowly.  It can also determine which age group people should get jobs for.  For example, if the population is biggest is the 0-14 categories, you may consider getting a job working for a toy company.  Or if the population is the biggest in the 45+ categories, you may want to become a c...

In today's class we went over the test we took last week.  I felt like I did a lot better than I did.  I didn't do that bad though, I got an 83 which is still a B but I thought I would get a 90 or somewhere around there.  I got all of the questions on the first page for the CIA Factbook.  I got 4 out of the 5 questions wrong on one page and I thought I only got one wrong.  I got all the push and pull questions right and I got the extra credit questions wrong which I thought I did.  We also talked about how only 5% of the world speaks English.  Today is a D day so classes were shorter.  I had no tests or quizzes today so it's a good day.  I do have a lot of homework but it's okay, I'll get it all done eventually.

Today we took the test.  I did not feel ready at all, probably because I only briefly studied last night for it.  Before we took it I went over everything though.  I thought that the test was pretty easy, I knew just about all the answers.  I would not have done well if I hadn't gone over everything though.  I was nervous that I wouldn't finish within the twenty minutes that we were allowed to use the website but I finished before the twenty minutes were up.  There was one question about Russia's birth rate and if it would be rising or falling and I didn't know wha to say so I just said rising.  I also had no idea what the extra credit questions were, I didn't even know what it was asking so I just made up two random numbers.  Other than that I feel pretty confident with how I did.  I got to study for my math test that I have later today because I finished early.

In todays class we went over the blog post that was yesterday's classwork and last nights homework.  We also had a discussion about several things in between.  We talked about how Luxembourg is one of the most wealthiest countries in the world.  It's ranked fifth out of all countries in GDP per capita (ppp).  Luxembourg is not in any debt, whatsoever.  In fact, they have a surplus of money to spend!  They're neighboring countries and Germany, Belgium, and France.  We talked about how America has a wider range of ethnicities living here than most other countries do.  I also learned that about 98% of Mexicans are Roman Catholics and only about 20% of Americans are Roman Catholics.  We have a quiz coming up on Friday and I'm not as confident as I was for the last one.  I think I'll do okay on it but I definitely need to start studying now to be ready for it.

What is the population of China, and of India?  The population of China is 1,384,688,986 and the population of India is 1,296,834,042. What is the Total Fertility Rate in Japan? The total fertility rate in Japan is 1.42. What is the death rate in El Salvador? The death rate in El Salvador is 5.8. What percentage of the French identify “none” as their religion? Is this statistic verifiable, and why? 23-28% of France identify "none" as their religion and that is not verifiable because the government doesn't feel it's their place to ask people about their religion because their job is to  take care of the secular side of the world. What percentage of Mexicans identify themselves as Roman Catholic? 82.7% of Mexicans are Roman Catholics. What is the GDP - per capita (PPP) in the United States? The GDP per capita in the US is $59,800. What is the GDP - per capita (PPP) in Nigeria? The GDP per capita in Nigeria is $5...

In yesterday's class, we talked about the crude birth rate and the crude death rate.  I learned that the crude birth rate is the number of births per thousand of the population, and the crude death rate is the number of deaths per thousand of the population.  I also learned that the rate of natural increase (RNI) is the annual natural growth (or decrease) of the population in percentage form.  This is found by subtracting the deaths from the births, typically there are more births than deaths but not all the time.  We also talked about the net migration rate and what push and pull factors there were for people that were thinking about migrating.  The net migration rate is the difference between the number of people that enter and leave a country per year.  Immigration is an excess number of people leaving a country and going to a new one.  This is written as a positive number.  Emigration is an excess number of people leaving their country.  ...