Some Great Sites to Learn More About Ancient Civilizations!

One site which has a comparison of the ancient civilizations based on political, economic, religious, social, intellectual, artistic, and geographical (phew!) context. We will be using this one in class.

http://www.birdville.k12.tx.us/schools/002/Personnel/Faculty/mward/documents/AncientPERSIAN.pdf

and four of my favorite sites on the four river civilizations courtesy of the British Museum:

http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/menu.html - Tigris and Euphrates River Valley
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html - Nile River Valley
http://www.ancientchina.co.uk/menu.html - Yellow River Valley
http://www.ancientindia.co.uk/menu.html - Indus River Valley

I hope you find them to be of interest.

After the Snopocalypse! Where were we?

So we missed more than a week from school, and you don't remember anything we covered up to this point! It's alright, I understand. Here are some of the basic themes we discussed (and if we discussed it, you're responsible for it.):
1.) Civilization began when farming began. Here is the sequence of how it began.
a.) Caveman looks for food as a hunter-gatherer
b.) Caveman wishes food was closer for time and safety reasons
c.) Caveman notices that some seeds grow into edible plants when dropped on ground
d.) Caveman begins to farm plants and domesticates animals
e.) Caveman is now a farmer, no longer a hunter-gatherer.
f.) Farmer becomes good at farming, is able to farm more food that ne needs. This is called a surplus.
g.) Surplus means that not everybody needs to farm. People can do other things to benefit the group -this is called job specialization.
h.) Different jobs leads to religion, art, government, writing, public works, government, and cities. This is civilization.

2.) The 4 River Civilizations
a.) Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in present-day Iraq.
b.) the Nile River Valley in Egypt
c.) The Indus River Valley in present day Pakistan/ India
d.) The Yellow River Valley in China

River were important in farming as well as trade, so this led to river valley civilizations!

Current Events - How Do You Do It?

Current Events are to be turned in at the beginning of each week and need to have at least the following four parts:

First paragraph:
1st Sentence: Your source (include the date) and your article's title.
2nd and 3rd Sentence: Summary of the article

Second paragraph:
4th and 5th Sentence: How it connects with the study of change across space (Geography) or change across time (History)
6th and 7th Sentence: Importance (Why you chose it; Relevance)

Introduction to World History

Welcome to World History and Geography 1! I really want to teach themes that students will see in history, such as : (political systems) bands, tribes, chiefdoms, states; (economic activity) extraction, manufacturing, service, research; (class systems) peasants, landowners, religious leaders, monarchs; (civilization) hunter-gatherer, nomadic herder, farmer, and city-dweller; Rules, duty, justice. Unifying themes will be stressed. We are starting at the age of empires just to cover our bases. More to come soon!