Class Today- 2/2814

Today in class, Phil and Matt taught. They were very lively and funny. We talked about the following:

-         A Greek city state was known as polis.

-         Not many Greek City States were highly populated, except for Athens which had 250,000

-         The towns were built around a hill which stood on top of it was an Acropolis.

-         Acropolis- the high fortified citadel and religious center of an ancient Greek town

-         The City States were really competitive and often fought one another.

-         The Greeks were the first known to have a name for the people who live in their community “polites” or “citizen.”

Mr. Schick went over the following terms:

Aegean Sea- east side of Greece
Ionian Sea- south and west side of Greece

Adriatic Sea-

Crete- Greek Island, very important, military, and ship trade

Athens:

Sparta:

Peloponnese

Mediterranean Sea- Mediterranean mean middle of the earth 

Yesterday's Blog- 2/27/14

Today in class, we had a sub. Mr. Schick wasn’t here so we did a project with partners. My partners were Jesseca, Sarah, and Maddie. We had to do a power point that was based on Athens vs. Sparta. We compared different things about each of the Greek Cities. We chose our theme for the power point and got some information. We answered the questions Mr. Schick put next to each topic and added it to the slides. We added some effects to the power point. We didn’t finish, but we are close to finishing. We talked about the location and population of each city-state. We also talked about the lifestyle and values of each city-state. We compared the government and military of each city. We showed the location on the map of each and put that in a slide. We did learn some information about the cities of Athens and Sparta.

LO3- Greece

Greek city- states consisted of usually one town and some square miles of countryside. Athens and Sparta were considered the giant city-states. Sometimes the town was built around a hill and around the top was an acropolis. An acropolis is a high fortified citadel and religious center of an ancient Greek town. Each community was competitive with each other because of the activity of worshipping the Gods. Who worshipped who and so on. The Greek’s language was the language that created the word “citizen” referring to a member of such a community. Some types of government that are important to know are oligarchy, monarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Oligarchy is a state in which supreme power is held by a small group. Monarchy is a state in which supreme power is held by a single, usually hereditary ruler. Tyranny is a rule by self-proclaimed dictator. Democracy was in ancient Greece, a form of government in which all adult male citizens were entitled to take part in decision making. The Spartans were descendants of Greeks who conquered the territory of Laconia. Soon the Spartans pushed westward into the plains of Messenia because the land of Laconia was infertile. When they moved to the plains of Messenia they turned the Greek inhabitants into helots. Helots were non-citizens forced to work for landholders in the ancient city-state of Sparta. 

Ancient Greece- February 25,2014

Today in West Civ class we took notes. We also reviewed some stuff we already learned about in the last class. We discussed about Ancient Greece and the Geography of it. These people were the people that lived in Mycenae. This began during 2000 B.C. This land is located on a rocky ridge and is protected by a wall. In class, we also discussed that around 1200 B.C. sea people began to invade Mycenae. These people invaded by burning palace after palace after palace. After the region was demolished, Dorians moved into the area. During the time when Dorians moved into the region writing disappeared for nearly 400 years and the economy collapsed. We also discussed a man by the name of Homer. He was a blind, old, poet that lived during the “Greek Dark Ages.” During his whole lifetime he composed two epics known as “The Lliad,” and “The Odyssey.” 

LO2- The Aegean Encounter

The farming wealth of the Aegean region, came from grain fields, vineyards, and olive groves. Southeastern Europe had lots of metals and timber for shipbuilding. So these Aegean people lived in metalworking, lumberjacking, trade, and piracy. Around 2200 B.C. the Minoan Civilization appeared on the island of Crete. Minoan Civilization gained its wealth due to surrounding seas. They gained wealth this way because trade with thriving with many different Mediterranean lands. The biggest trade partner was Egypt. Short after this time, the Greeks arrived. They came of as European Barbarian people and made their way into homeland. The people they settled with were the people that found the new homeland, developed life that included their traditions, and came under the influence of Crete. Around 1600 B.C. Greek chieftains established settlements along the mainland’s southern shore and on some of the islands. These settlements became the centers of a new civilization. 

The First European Civilization: The Greeks

* Barbarians are people that had a distinctive way of life, based on farming and warfare.
* Withing classical Greek civilization there appeared ideas, art forms, and types of government whose influence on western civilization has lasted down to the present day.
* Megaliths: massive rough-cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs.
* Tribe: a social and political unit consisting of a group of communities held together by common interests, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship
* Over 3 thousand years up to the time of the Persian empire, civilization had spread from its Sumerian and Egyptian homelands right across southwestern Asia and Northeastern Africa.

Why the Greeks rocked:
* New ideas
* Incredible art forms
* Democratic government with citizen participation
* Innovators in warfare

LO1:

4000 BC- farming and village life spreads from Sumerian and Egyptian lands across SW Asia and NE Africa, and the European continent

3500 BC- some are organized enough to construct megaliths, massive rough-cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs, such as Stonehenge (finished in England in 2000 BC), consisting of 160 massive boulders weighing up to 50 tons (100,000 pounds) each, stacked and circles and aligned to the movements of sun and moon.

From 2500 BC on- Indo-European nomads migrated from the steppes in eastern Europe
- Their language would evolve into Greek and Latin
- Their lives centered around strength and courage, comradeship and loyalty, contests and battle
- Thinner populations than Egypt or Mesopotamia- they formed tribes, social and political unit consisting of communities held together by common interests, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship

Tribes were headed by powerful hereditary chieftains, thought of as kings (or, rarely, queens)
This is how Europe came to be populated by speakers of Indo-European languages who were skilled in farming, metalworking, trade, and warfare
-No cities, no written records, no fixed structures of government
-They were barbarians (from Greek barbaros- "non-Greek")
-They adopted the way of life of those they encountered, and as they traveled (from 2000 BC to AD 1000), this is how civilization eventually spread throughout Europe
-The distinctive civilization the Greeks developed is the first that counts as definitely "Western"

GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE:
* mountainous peninsula
 - mountains cover 3/4
* approximately 1,400 islands in the Aegean and Lonian Seas
* location shaped its culture
*skilled sailors
*poor natural resources
*difficult to unite the ancient Greeks because of the terrain; developed small, independent communities
* approximately 20% suitable for farming
*fertile valleys cover 1/4 of peninsula
* because of geography the Greek diet consists of grains, grapes, olives
*lack of resources most likely led to Greek colonization
*temperatures range from 48 in the winter to 80 in the summer

West Civ Class- February 20, 2014

Today in West Civ we reviewed over our test. We basically just went over the questions. We went further in depth with the answers to the questions and Mr. Schick explained them. We went around the room and everyone in the class took turns and read the questions and gave the answers. Some of us got some wrong answers but we eventually got the right answers, and as I said, Mr. Schick explained the answers. We always have fun in class with answering questions and explaining things to each other. Today was especially fun because we were all learning and having fun at the same time. Mr. Schick really makes the class fun and exciting with his sense of humor. That makes the class livelier and honestly today was a really good class. I felt pretty good when I took the test and I ended up getting an 88, so I was happy with my grade!