Giada's Honors Human Geography Blog

   On yesterday's Western Civ. blog post, Mr. Schick posted a bunch of his thoughts on aspects of cyber school. One thing he mentioned in his list was accountability. During this time away from our regular school environment, we are finding that students really need to step up by focusing on doing our assignments with our 100% effort, by realizing the importance of doing our own work, and trying our hardest to manage our time so that we get our work done efficiently. I would completely agree with this. From my point of view, I am finding it harder to get my work done efficiently. Not only do we have an increased workload of schoolwork, but we have to give it our all and try our best on these assignments, with all the difficulties surrounding us. To be completely honest, I find myself wanting to just look up the answers to my work, but then I realize that I need to truly understand the subject/topic we're learning. This can make it even harder because, like Mr. Schick stated in...

   In our world today, we are facing a world-wide pandemic called the Coronavirus. We can compare this to the plague that swarmed through Athens during the Peloponnesian War, usually referred to as the "Plague of Athens". The Plague of Athens broke out in the year 430 BCE and died out in 426 BCE. On the other hand, the Coronavirus originated in China in December of 2019 and has not died out. In fact, the virus has gotten much worse since then. One similarity between these two diseases is their symptoms. Thucydides, an Ancient Greek historian, was in Athens when plague broke out. He described the symptoms by saying,  "people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath" COVID-19 (Coronavirus) also shows symptoms of  cough,  fever, and shortness of breath! However, a difference  betw...

Alexander the Great  - Alexander the Great was best known for his military leadership and for being a strategic commander. His father was King Philip II. He was king of Ancient Greece before he passed down his kingship to his son. Alexander ruled over a strong and united Greece from 336-323 BCE. When he was a child, he was taught how to ride a horse, how to fight, how to hunt, and many other skills like mathematics, reading, writing, and how to play a lyre. Philip II got an amazing philosopher, Aristotle to tutor his son, Alexander, when he was 13 years old. Alexander like to read writings of Homer such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Once Alexander was in control of Greece and was named king, he headed east, looking to expand his empire and conquer land. He first went through Asia Minor, winning battle after battle. He conquered Syria, defeated the Persian Empire, conquered Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, and was going to go through India, but his men were angered and missed their wives...

   The bond between Alexander the Great and his horse, Bucephalus, was very special. Bucephalus was a large, black stallion who was presented to Alexander's father, King Phillip II in 346 BCE by Philonecus of Thessaly, for a price of 13 talents. This price was 3 times the normal amount at the time! However, this horse was taller than the normal Macedonian horse and was described as "too wild and unmanageable". Because of this, King Phillip ordered it away, but Alexander insisted that he would pay for the horse himself if he couldn't tame it. Everyone laughed at him because they thought that he would definitely fail at this. However, young Alexander came up to the horse and realized that it was actually afraid of it's own shadow! So, Alexander pointed the horse toward the sun in order to get the horse's shadow behind it. While the horse was facing the sun, Alexander mounted it. All were amazed that Alexander could actually do this, and all the laughter turn...

   This past week, we have all done cyber school and it's our first time. In some aspects, it's great! But on many other aspects, it really is not so great. One good thing about cyber school is that you can take breaks when you need to, whether you just feel like relaxing for a bit, or you just need a break from so much information. Another good thing about it is that you can decide (for the most part), what classes and what homework you want to do first. For example, I always like to get my easy homework done first, so that when I am doing the more difficult homework, I don't feel like I need to rush. On the other hand, there are many negatives of it. For starters, you're sitting down, probably in one spot for almost the whole day. You have breaks, but you constantly need to be working. Another negative for me, which is probably the hardest, is managing your time wisely so that you are getting your work done efficiently. Personally, I get distracted very easily, and te...

   I think Socrates, and Sophists like Protagoras, would start questioning traditional beliefs in Athenian history because at this time, the war had come to an end and many changes followed. Pericles, ruler of Athens, had died from plague (along with many other Athenians), and the people gave up on the ideals of democracy. With all this confusion, scrambling to obtain power, and having complete control of the future of Athens, Athenians were searching for some kind of truth or meaning in their lives. This is why philosophers emerged in  Ancient Greece. Their philosophy was based on two main ideas: that the universe is put together in an orderly way, with absolute and unchanging laws, and that people understand laws through logic and reason. There were many different philosophers with many different ideas that started to come into play in Ancient Greece. For example, one group of philosophers were the Sophists. They questioned peoples beliefs and ideas ...

   During the Peloponnesian War, Sparta's army invaded Athenian territory, burning Athen's farmland around their city. Athenians could only watch their fields and crops being destroyed from behind their city walls, because Pericles convinced his people to go with his plan. Pericles' plan seemed like an efficient strategy at first, but eventually, it led to devastation in Athens. Pericles believed that he could strengthen Athenian navy so that they would be the greatest power in the Mediterranean. By doing so, he decided that they shouldn't try to fight off Sparta's land army. Therefore, his plan was to keep Athens within their city walls. Because of this, Athens was relying on fleet and shipments from overseas to survive. This is the start to a great fall. One year into the war, the grain boats that fed the city of Athens brought plague along with them! Since the Athenian population was crammed together, within city walls, plague spread rapidly. Not only was this pl...