Absent

I was out sick today and couldn't complete this blog.

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Hans Rosling: 200 Years in 4 Minutes.

In class, we watched a video by Swedish global health teacher Hans Rosling. Rosling used visualization to show the difference by nation in life expectancy and GDP per capita between 1810 and 2009, when the video was made. In 1810, life expectancy was below age 40 worldwide, and GDP per capita was below $400 worldwide, but this didn't take inflation into consideration. As time progressed, western, particularly European, nations had a significant increase in GDP per capita because of the industrial revolution. The better economies led to better healthcare, and longer lifespans in these nations. Meanwhile, colonized countries in Asia and Africa were doing poorly both in life expectancy and GDP per capita because they were not impacted by the industrial revolution. In the video, we saw how WWI and the Spanish Flu epidemic impacted the world's population as nations all over the world had great decreases in the life expectancy. Seeing these countries recover and come back stronge...
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Demographic Transition

We studied a demographic transition model in class today and further discussed the stages of population change. To help us better understand this, we watched a video from yesterday from Khan Academy. In the video, demographic transition was explained through its main factors, birth rate, death rate, and natural increase/ decrease. In stages 1 through 4, the population increases due to birth rate consistently being higher than death rate, but in the fifth stage, the population decreases. This natural decrease is caused by birth rates being lower than death rates. Birth rates drop due to societal and cultural norms, such as women working paying jobs instead of being homemakers and stay-at-home mothers, as well as less people seeing having children and 'starting a family' as a necessity in the modern age. Since children can no longer be legally used for free manual labor, and most people live in urban environments where children can't be used for manual labor on farms, there ...
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How Maps Can Lead to Racism

In class, we learned that the world map we use in school is actually very inaccurate. The map makes Africa and South America look much smaller than they actually are, and makes Europe look larger. The outdated map should probably be replaced with a Peter's Projection Map. This map is accurate in representing a 3D subject (the Earth) on a 2D surface by adjusting longitudinal lines. This more accurately shows the continents in correct proportions. We also learned that in Oceanic countries, the map is displayed upside down by American standards. This is so Australia is in the top left and therefore, the first thing that we see, rather than on the bottom right and nearly out of sight. Schick connected this to nationalism and patriotism, as we thought it was proper for America to be the first thing on the map, because in each person's eyes, their country is the best/ most important. (I'd like to add that, on a personal note, I think that the U.S. isn't really that great. ...
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