riley feeney's blog

Today in Mr. Schicks Western Civilization class, we finally finished watching the video “GUNS GERMS AND STEEL” by National Geographic and UCLA professor Jared Diamond. We finally heard the answer to Yali’s question of “why do you white men have so much cargo, while we New Guineans have so little?” The answer is geographic luck and the types of farming and crops that are native to their land. The New Guinean crops are not as sustainable as wheat and barley, which are found in the Middle East. Jared Diamond said that if the New Guineans were lucky then they would be the ones creating the helicopter and not the white men. Mr. Schick also brought in bread that had twenty-two different grains in it and passed it around to the whole class for us to try. Ham had five pieces and tried to buy the last six for six dollars.

today I was absent from school and missed my western civilization class with Mr. Schick.

Today we watched “GUNS GERMS AND STEEL” by Jared Diamond and National Geographic again. We found out from the video that saho comes from a tree and is not very nutritious and does not last very long. Because of this, the New Guineans are sometimes forced to eat giant spiders to get enough food for the day. An archaeologist from Canada named Dr. Ian Kuijt, from Notre Dame University, studied the river Draa in the Jordan valley, near the Dead Sea. He found what is thought to be the first village. He found crop domestication and silo-like building used as a granary. He talked about how the humans back then were subconsciously modifying crops by choosing the traits they liked. Jared Diamond hypothesized that the reason New Guineans were poor was because of their type of farming. The crops used by New Guineans are low on nutrition and are not long lasting like barley and corn, which are found in Africa and the Americas.

  Today was the second of my western civilization class with Mr. Schick. I came in late today because the constant rain caused extra traffic which lead to many students to be late. We watched a video called “GUNS GERMS AND STEEL” by National Geographic. The host, Jared Diamond, is a professor at UCLA, a biologist, an expert in human physiology, an author, and has a passion for bird watching. He said he started watching birds when he was 7 and the first time he saw the birds of New Guinea it was love at first sight. His goal is to figure out the have and have nots of today’s world. He believes that it came from racism as the colonials believed power is determined by race. Diamond listed the three characteristics of major civilizations as large population, advanced technology, and a well-organized workforce. The video also showed the Guineans worshipping the material possessions the English had brought over because they did not understand their purposes.

Today was the first day of western civilization and my first day in Mr. Schick’s class. We went over the class rules and Mr. Schick showed us how to set up our blogs. Mr. Schick told us to not play games on our computers before or during class. He mentioned that he gave out eight detentions for playing games and how Ben Fetzer received some of them. At first the websites weren’t opening but I figured out how to open it thanks to my good friend Jack Coyner. I was previously in Mr. Fendryck’s class for human geography. I cant wait to start the new semester with my new teachers, Mr. Kimble and Mr. Schick. Mr. Schick seems like a funny, nice and caring teacher who wants all his students to succeed. He makes us take notes in a notebook and do blogs after class so we remember everything that he taught us.