Davids Blog

1. What did you learn from this task?

When i started the school year i did not know much about ancient Mali. But after doing lots of research and putting together a Wikispace about ancient Mali i knew  lot more than when i did at the beginning of the school year.

2.Did you find this difficult or easy?Why?

I did not find this difficult but you could not call it easy either. I had some trouble trying to find valid information because most of the information you get is on Mali today. But i found the typing and setting up the Wiki pretty easy.

3.What would you change about the process you went through to complete the wiki if you were to do the assignment again?

If i could do the whole thing again i would work harder and try to research harder and find more information. I would also change the format to a better looking one.

I was surprised that many people do not have enough money a day to even afford water! I was interested in learning that many people in Malawi only use about $600 a year!! That would come to just about $1.5 a day, while many people are living very comfortbul lives with many luxuries in Bermuda where their GDP per Capita is a giant 69,900!! Imagine having that much money to spend, that would be all your groceries plus many games, toys, holidays and more.

 I was also facinated by the amount of people that were affected by disises each year. If you think about it you will we totally amazed at how many people are affected by AIDS and other desieses. Can you belive that in Swaziland 38% of the adults die because they have AIDS, that is a lot compared to Svalbard which has a 0% of their population dieing from AIDS.

I also found that many countries depend on one resource to basically keep them alive. What if this country suddenly ran out of this precious recource like oil. Then the country would suddenly becoume very poor and their poverty rate will increase. All of these facts completely fascinated me. This lesson was one of the most interesting lessons of all.

Before the West Africans developed and used iron they had to use rock for hunting and farming. The bones and rocks weren’t very affective against the animals that they wanted to eat. They also toiled very hard when farming because the rocks and bone were not effective enough to cut the wheat. After 500B.C the Nok started using iron technology. They first had to find and smash the Iron Ore . Then they had to heat up the iron ore so that it becomes malleable. When it has heated up and it red they hammer it into spearheads and knives. In West Africa the discovery of iron brought revolutionary changes. It was easier for the hunters to gather meat because the iron spears worked better than the stones and bone.West Africa then started to build early trade centers. The Niger River was used as the ultimate trading Highway. Jenne Jeno was the first major trading area in West Africa. This trading brought a lot of wealth to all the countries in West Africa.

 In 800-1500 Ghana was the richest of all the West African Countries. Ghana got its wealth by setting up the trans Saharan trade. The trade was widely used because of the safe exchange. Ghana had a very strong military power… they had enough power to ensure that the trade went smoothly. Ghana was a good place to trade because it was in the middle of 2 very powerful countries. The North traded salt and the West traded Gold. Ghana would often take the amount they traded in tax. Islam was a large religion in Ghana. They were very fussy about their religion and would make barriers to stop them interacting with the other religions in fear that they might change religion. The Indigenous Religion was also very fussy about their religion and also did not want their people to change religion. Ghanas Unity was because of their fair ruler. He made fair rules and had a strong military force to enforce the fair laws.  Ghanas Strength came from iron and the tax they put for the traders. The military had iron so they could enforce the law, this made Ghanas even more powerful.

Two countries battled to control mali… The Mandinke and the Sosso. In the end none of them won… Mali did. When Mali won its territory increased and it was twice the size of the old Ghana. Mali’s power lasted for 200 years. Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage was far grander than any other mali king. 60,000 people and 500 slaves followed him. Each slave carried four pounds of gold. Musa was very generous with his gold, this caused the local money, the dinar to have a sudden decrease in worth. Mali was then included in European maps because of its incredible wealth and strength.

Songhai was under malis control until it grew to greatness in 1400. Sunn Ali Berr was the leader of the people who gained indipendence.The empire of Songhai grew from a small settlement of farmers and fishermen… in the end the Songhai empire was larger than Mali and Ghana combined. Songhai was the last of the great trading empires in West Africa.

Al-Mansur, the sultan of morroco tried to collect an army to conquer songhai. He wanted to control the gold and the salt. Al-Mansur used musketeers to capture the salt mines in Morroco. Morrocans accaced Gao and 118,000 people fought to capture Gao. After the battle all political unity was destroyed and the Salt for Gold trade stopped. All the land then fell to waste.

The similarity between my current events blog is that many people are discoraged and sad. In my one many people were killed and injured by a bomb. This caused many people to feel discouraged, lost and unhappy. In Vanessas blog the ex-prime minister suffers a heart attack. This could lead to many of the people in the country who believed he was their idol would be a bit discouraged and unhappy.

I found it interesting that many people ideled him and liked him. I did not think a prime minister could be like that much that he would become and idol to all the people in the country.

I liked it how Vanessa explained everything clearely and explained how many malaysians thought of him as an idol and liked him a lot.

I think Vanessa did not use many links to inform the reader more about what is happening and what some words that people might not understand mean.

Pictures:

From: http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/ArticleImages/mahathirMohamad_web.jpg

From:http://antarctica.mir.com.my/images/mahathir.jpg

My response posting is on Vanessa’s blog.

I think that Vanessa ’s blog is a great current events blog. I think it should have a bit more content so that people can understand the posting a bit better. I think that the mild heart attack of the ex-prime minister can have an affect on the people of Malaysia. I also think that Vanessa should of put a few more links in the article for people who did not fully understand the article. The pictures in the posting were very good and they were all related to the topic. Alltogether i think Vanessa’s posting is very good.

The Issue:

In Baghdad a bomb exploded on the roadside at 7:50am on the 30th of October in an area where many day laborers gather. Many of them were killed in the bomb blast.

Who Is Involved:

The 26 people who were killed and the 60 people that were injured and the people who killed and injured them were directly involved.

Who Is Affected And How:

The 60 people that were injured may have permenent injuries and the familys and friends of the people that died during the bombings.

What Would I Do If I Was Directly Involved:

I would help the supporting efforts to help the injured civillians, police and soldiers recover from their wounds. I would also try to get more security around the area to prevent furthur vilonce.

The Future And The Way The Peoples Lives Are Impacted:

The people that have permenent injuries will be impacted because they may have to be in a wheel chair for the rest of their lives and they will not be able to do many things they would like to do. The family and friends of the killed people will be impacted because they will not have them to help them and have fun together.

Citation

CNN http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.main/index.html

30/10/06

I.
Country Name: Russia
Type of Government: Federation
Political Leader: Vladmir Putin

Population: 142,893,540
Age Structure: 0-14 years14.2%, 15-64 years 71.3%, 65+ years 14.4%
Ethnic Groups: Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 2%, Bashkir 1.2%, Chuvash 1.1% Other 12.1%
Religion: Russian Orthodox, Muslim, Christian
Languages: Russian and many others
Literacy Rates: Over all age 15 99.6%
Fertility Rates:1.28 Children born/woman
Life Expectancy: 60.45 years male and 74.1 years female
Infant Mortality Rate: 17.47 deaths/1000 live births male, 12.7 deaths/1000 live births female

GDP Per Capita: $11,100
% Living Under Poverty: 17.8%
% Of Internet Users: 23.7 million;
% Of Cell Phone Owners: 74.42 million

II.

Google Earth Screen-Shot

III.
We did some work on Google Earth to make a map with all the countries of the world and we used HTML to make colour and fonts. The things I learnt were how to use Google Earth and how to research effectively on a country. I found this moderately easy because I was not able to do all things the right way because I had never used Google Earth before but once I got used to it I had no trouble at all. Things I would still like to get better at are using Google Earth and using HTML. I would like to explore Google Earth some more and I also would like to learn more HTML language.

IV.
Many things including their high infant mortality rate challenge Russia, their decreasing population and their life expectancy at birth. Russia’s infant mortality rate is very high and 17.8 children die per 1000 children that are born each year under the age of 1. Many parents would be devastated if their young child dies the deaths could be caused by lack of food, weather o7r many other things. If children keep on dieing their population will slowly go down and that would result in a bad life for many people. They are also challenged because their population is dropping slowly but surely. Their population is dropping by 0.36% a year. In many years this could lead to fewer services, fewer workers and fewer homes. When there are less services more people will die unless other countries help them or they could try to provide better living conditions now so they wont suffer in the future. They are also challenged because their life expectancy at birth is very low this could be caused by lack of food or climate. This could also lead to a drop in population witch could affect many different things. I think Russia should try to get better food, try to get better and warmer shelter for the poor and provide more services for sick children.

What have I learnt in geography so far?

I have learnt that geography is the study of the Earth and the Planets. Geography has two main parts Physical Geography and Cultral or Human Geography. Physical Geography studies plants, the earth, soil, map making and many other things. Cultral or Human Geography studies the distrubution of ethenic groups, the location of places of worship and the way the environment can affect and change humans.

http://www.reference.com/browse/columbia/geograph

Air Chief Marshal Houston says there might not be peace for 10 years in afghanistan.The issue in Afghanistan is that there are many illigal drug dealers and many terrorists. Many countries don’t want them to hurt the citizens because they will suffer in the future.

The people who are directely involved are the 12 countries of the NATO and Afghanistan. Many citizens are also involved because their houses have been destroyed by the terrorists of Afghanistan.

The world is affected because we all have to use military power to force the dealers and terrorists to stop. The country is also affected because many people are dieing in Afghanistan. Many houses are being destroyed, so the innocint citicens are left homeless and possesionless.

I think the best solotion to the problem is to keep sending troops to inforce the law in Afghanistan. Peoples lives will be impacted a lot because they might die and many will be left without money or homes.
Link of Article

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/peace-long-way-off-for-afghans/2006/09/10/1157826813709.html

http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/ci_crisis/images/210244.jpg

http://ssmeetsit.edublogs.org/2006/08/22/sample-current-events-posting-israeli-lebanon-raid-worries-un/