To the Victor, Goes the Spoils

This week our lessons topic was based on the presidency of Andrew Jackson. For this unit, the essential question was, "Is Andrew Jackson's long-standing reputation as "the people's president" deserved?" To answer this question, we were split into 7 groups by card, and given one of Jacksons key policies to examine. Our group was given the spoils system.

The first problem discussed was Andrew Jackson's policy on banks. As the first national banks expiration date was coming up, the government decided to create the second national bank to replace the first one. Jackson however, vetoed the charter for the bank because he believed that the bank would have too much power over the nations economy, and only help the rich. This eventually backfired, and caused the crash of 48'. The second issue discussed was, the spoils system. This was the system in which the winning party of an election, gives it's voters political positions. Though it did help Jackson get voters, it put incompetent people in important offices, which lead to large scale scandals. The last and most infamous policy of the Jackson administration, was the Indian Removal Act. This law, forced many native off their land and made them force march half way along the nation, for resettlement. Though most of Jackson's policies had ephemeral benefits, Jackson tried (and failed) to be a people's president, which is better than not trying. In my opinion, Jackson Does deserve his reputation.      

Floo powder ---> 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w43s7fLCuJE&list=UUuc7-QIEhHZEFC6O4JEyqbw

The Rite Kind Of Freedom?

Our Poster. The early american voting system was judged with a one to five star rating. Also just to clarify, I know the title has the wrong form of right in it, but the title of the poster had Rite in it, so I had to put it in the title.

This week, our lesson was based on the early American democracy. For this lesson, we incorporated the essential question, "How should we define democracy? How democratic was the United States in the early 1800s?" The definition that our group came up with was, A government system in which the power is distributed among the law abiding citizens, of said country, by the system of voting, in which they have the opportunity to choose their political leaders and representatives. For our poster we analyzed several sources about voting rights in the early 1800's. Our sources were a painting created by George Caleb Bingham about voting, a quote about voting by Benjamin Franklin and Norton Townsworth, two charts about the percentage of people with the right to vote, and a excerpt from the Dorr War. All of the evidence seemed to support the state of democracy in 1800's except for the except from the Dorr war, and the two quotes.

The Triple Threat from Latin America

This week in class, we learned about the latin revolutions in Brazil, Gran Colombia, and Mexico. the essential question for this unit was, “Why is it essential to acknowledge human value regardless of race? How are the

TO CLARIFY: Peninsulares were people of  European descent born in Europe, Creoles were people of European descent born in the Americas, Mestizos were natives with a position of power, Mulattoes were people of European and American descent, the rest is self explanatory    

events in the Latin American Revolutions evidence of this social imperative?” The essential question was very critical,when talking about the latin revolutions, because almost all of them started from prejudice distribution of power among the citizens. at the start of the lesson we were split into 3 groups, and each group was given a revolution to cover. In those groups, we had to make a timeline of our assigned timeline. After we finished we shared them with the other groups.

All of the revolutions in Latin America had different reasons and outcomes. While Gran Colombia became a republic once it had declare independance, Mexico and brazil both became constitutional monarchies with their own royal families and that such. The leaders of the each individual  revolutions, also had different characteristics too. Brazils revolutionary leader was a peninsulare born in portugal, while the leaders of the Mexican and Colombian revolutions were creoles, born in their respective countries.

Timeline for Revolutions in Brazil

Though very different the revolutions were also very similar in many ways. For one, they all of the revolution were fought against a country located on the Iberian peninsula. Brazil fought for independence against the portuguese, while mexico and Gran Colombia fought against the nation of spain. The other reason that the revolutions were similar, was that they all had one figurehead to lead the revolution. King Pedro lead Brazil to independence, Simón Bolívar piloted Gran Colombia to freedom, and Antonio José de Sucre was the vanguard for the Mexican Revolution.

While the race problem in 1800's latin america does not seem relevant to modern society, it really is. The major issue of race/religion is present in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, a feud that has been going on for centuries. In the Israeli, many muslims cannot visit any of their holy sites, because of the actions set  radical muslim groups like Hamas or Isis.  Incidents like this are gestures that we as a society, have the same maturity as the spanish/portugese in the 1800's.

Remembering Toussaint L'ouverture

Which country of the new world abolished slavery first? Many would say the United States, but infact, it is actually the small island nation of Haiti. Haiti is located on the small island of Hispaniola. Until 1804, the island of Hispaniola had been two colonies controlled by the French and the Spanish. these two colonies were prized for the massive amounts of sugar and coffee produced. The French colony, named Saint Domingue at the time, employed mass slavery to reach their sugar producing quotas. In 1781, The Haitians, influenced by the revolutions occurring overseas, decided to revolt in hopes of abolishing slavery. At the vanguard of the Revolution was Toussaint Louverture, who rose up through the ranks and became one of the most prominent generals of the Haitian Revolutions. Ironically, just before Haiti was declared an independent nation, Toussaint Louverture was captured and killed. How should we remember Toussaint Louverture. Louverture was by many haitians as the liberator of slaves. He lead the Haitians though victory after victory, and he was one of the founding fathers of Haiti. Toussaint Louverture is remembered as the liberator of slaves, brilliant military general, and a draconian founding father of the country of Haiti.

One of renown of Toussaint Louverture’s attainments is being the liberator of slaves. Toussaint Louverture started his rise to power fighting against the slave jailers. Through out his military career, Toussaint Louverture seemed to always be fighting for the abolition of slavery. When he started his rebellion, he fought against France who still supported slavery. When France abolished slavery, Toussaint Louverture immediately switched back to the French. When Napoleon seemed like he would reinstate slavery, Toussaint Louverture fought against him. In a letter Louverture sent to the French Directory, he writes, “Could men who have once enjoyed the benefits of liberty look calmly while it is taken from them? They bore their chains when they knew no conditions of life better than that of slavery…” (Doc. B) Throughout Toussaint Louverture’s military career, Louverture fought nearly all of the European superpowers to ensure that slavery would have no place in Haiti. In the Saint Domingue Constitution of 1801, it supports, “There cannot exist slaves in the territory, servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French.” Because of Toussaint Louverture’s obsession towards abolishing slavery,  Toussaint Louverture should be memorialized as a champion of abolition.

Toussaint Louverture’s other well known characteristics was being a brilliant strategist. When  Toussaint Louverture finally finished his military career, he had defeated almost all of the European superpowers, and crippled the dreams of an ambitious general. He conquered almost all of the island of Hispaniola. In Document A, which is a timeline of the Haitian revolution, it proclaims, “As a military commander, Toussaint gains the reputation for running an orderly camo and training his men in both guerrilla tactics and the European shoulder to shoulder style of war.”  Also written in The Black Man, His Anecdotes, His Genius, His Achievements, “the rapidity with which he traveled from post to post astonished everyone. By his genius and suppressing activity, Toussaint levied fresh forces, raised the reputation of the army and drove out the english and the spanish from the island...” With  Toussaint Louverture obviously being a competent general, Haiti was guaranteed to abolish slavery and declare its independence. Toussaint Louverture, though hated by his enemies, should be remembered as the military genius who granted independence to Haiti.

The last and most infamous way that Toussaint Louverture should be remembered is as the iron fisted dictator of early Haiti. During his reign over Haiti, multiple rebellions broke out under him, protesting the privileges of the rich.However, Toussaint Louverture smashed all of these rebellions which an iron fist. He executed thousands of rebels and his own cousin for taking part in the rebellion. In  Toussaint Louverture: a Biography, an excerpt states,” ...Toussaint was so enraged that when he passed through the rebel zone he ordered the mutineer regiments on parade and summoned men to step out of rank and blow their own brains out…”  As a unsparing dictator,  Toussaint Louverture certainly didn't have any empathy for his foes. Even when governing his own land Toussaint Louverture was very strict on work policy, “ As soon as a child can walk, he should be employed on the plantation according to his strength in some work…” (Toussaint Louverture, Proclamation, 25 November 1801). t The last way Toussaint Louverture should be remembered, is as the infamous, draconian dictator of Haiti.

Despite having a mixed record over Haiti, Toussaint Louverture was a very prominent man. He introduced Abolitionism to the New World, where something like that idea was popsterous. He crushed the armies of Europe when they threatened Haiti, and may have indirectly given the U.S.the  Louisiana territories. Lastly, Many of the people he ruled were vexed at him for his unpopular economic reforms. Nevertheless,  Toussaint Louverture was a chief image in history for bringing ideas of abolition to the New world, creating the second independent nation  in the Americas, and conceiving the first “truly free” nation, that gave “rights” to “people” of all color.      

Documents:

Document A: Timeline created from various sources.

Document B:  Toussaint Louverture, "Proclamation, 25 November 1801."

Document C: The Saint Domingue Constitution of 1801. Signed by Toussaint Louverture in July 1801.

Document D: Toussaint Louverture, "Letter to the French Directory, November 1797."

Document E: Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, 2007.

Document F: William Wells Brown, "A Description of Toussaint Louverture"

Messing Up France

Judging Scale

This week, our class learned about the revolutions of the 1830's and the 1840's. As our class learned, many historians classified these revolutions as failures. Like most revolutions, the ideas behind the revolutions came from France, and spread throughout Europe. The essential question given for this topic was, Were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded? Firstly before any discussion about the revolution, we were split into groups to judge what was a failed rebellion, and what was a success full revolution. After that we were assigned a revolution to cover. My group and I were assigned to French Revolution of 1848. Once we had looked over the information provided, we were create a surveymonkey.

For our Revolution, we did the French Revolution of 1848. Late into the 1840's, civil unrested was spreading throughout France. Three large groups, the liberal middle class, the socialists, and the working class, were unsatisfied with the constitutional monarchy put in place by the 1830 revolution. The middle class wanted economic reforms unrestricting trade with other countries. The socialist wanted social reforms that would provide plenty of food for the poor. All the working class wanted, was more jobs. The opponent they all fought against was the monarchy and the upper class, who have been benefiting thought the reforms made by King Louis Philippe.

Angry People protesting in front of Parisian Town Hall 

The French Revolution was separated into two parts, the February days, and the June days. The February days was the initial revolt against King Louis Philippe's government. The outcome through this revolution was the abdication of Louis Philippe and the creation of the second French Empire. The June days was the second  phase of the revolution. The recently elected president, Napoleon the Third, staged a coup d'etat abolishing the Second French Republic. He created, and crowned himself emperor of the Second French Empire. Eventually, the Second French Empire collapsed in 1871 due to a decay of foreign relations, landing the French citizens back to square one.

Results from the SurveyMonkey

The French Revolution of 1848, had a neutral outcome. There was no "real" bloodshed throughout this revolution, and no rights were permanently gained. The whole thing was pointless, nothing was really gained, but for a short few years, the people did enjoy so of the liberties of voting, before Napoleon the Third took over. Overall, the French Revolution of 1848 was a neutral outcome, and it didn't help Europe in any way.  

The Poshest Congress of Them All

A meeting of the Congress

During the late days of 1815, the Napoleonic wars were just coming to an end. Napoleon was finally defeated and the kings that he overthrew had reclaimed their kingdoms that they lost. In attempt to stop any more challengers to their power, the kings congressed in Vienna to discuss what they would do to stop a rebellion form brewing up. This was, the famous Congress of Vienna. Recently in class, we have been studying post-Napoleonic Europe, and how people like Klemens von Metternich, Frederick William III, and Alexander I, dealt with the shifting of power in Europe in the early 1800 th century. To let us understand the Congress of Vienna, we were given the  main dilemmas that the Congress of Vienna had Dealt with. We had to decide, which option, that the Congress would have most likely picked.

One major creation of the congress was the Holy Alliance. The Holy alliance was introduced behest the ruler of Russia, Tsar Alexander I; it was the idea that the kingship was a divine right, and the current kings were chosen by god to be kings. In theory, any
one who challenges the king, would also be challenging the god's authority, and be a heretic. Personally, I

Extent of Holy Alliance

find this idea really stupid, because if you go by that logic, wouldn't the kings also be heretics if they tried to stop people who god decided to give the idea of rebellion? Paradoxes aside, the Holy Alliance was supported by only three for the four major powers of Europe. Only Britain excluded themselves from the alliance because they were hipsters, and Anglican Protestant.

I personally think the Congress of Vienna was a Huge success. Even though the peasants lost some of the privileges, it was really for the best, the higher classes are the ones who really need the power. The liberal ideas wouldn't have helped Europe at all, after all they came from the man efficiently managed a empire four times the size of Britain. The conservative ideas were far more efficient, after all we survived the Dark Ages without a hitch. The people should've been happy that they weren't under the rule of a government in which a serf could climb the social ladder.The Congress of Vienna was a brilliant, masterfully crafted moment in history, and should be seen as the format for all future congression of super powers ;D.  

                                                                      Napoleon and Metternich

M&Ms or Skittles, Hmmmm

In class recently, we learned about the main ideologies floating around Europe during the 19th and 18th century, mainly liberalism, nationalism, and conservatism. Although these terms are present in modern politics, they have very different definitions. For our activity, we were divided into six separate groups. Each pair of two groups were assigned an ideology to perform about. The groups were then had to make and present a one minute video or skit about their assigned ideology. After the videos or skits were presented the class the voted on which video best represented our ideal.

For our video, we had to represent nationalism. We decided to use to create a video using Chatterpix. We started the video with the multicolored M&Ms, symbolising the divided nationalists, fighting each other over who is the best color. Then we had a skittle, who was supposed to be the foreign ruler, attack the skittles. The M&Ms then set aside their differences and banded together to defeat the skittle.

Nationalism arose after the defeat of Napoleon during the Seventh Coalition war, Italians and Germans then saw that their unification was a strength 

During the 19th century, the nationalism arose as an ideology. Nationalism was especially popular in the countries of central Europe, which are the lands that have constantly been conquered by foreign powers. Nationalism was the idea that people of a common descent should band together to prevent a foreign leader from taking them over.

Over the 19th century, two other ideologies also arose. The first one is liberalism. Liberalism was very popular within the middle classes of Europe. Liberalism's basis was the idea of a meritocracy, which is giving power to those who deserve it, unlike the atricorcy which had been in prominence in Europe for many years. Because of this Liberalism was very popular among the middle class because it granted them the most power out of all the ideologies. On the contrary, Conservatism was also very popular during this time perode. Conservatism advocated for keeping the aristocracy because they felt that the aristocracy was a secure way of ruling. Unsurprisingly, this was only popular among the nobles and the Church who benefited from the aristocracy.

The Five M&Ms

Napoleon, the Revolutionist

Napoleon Bonaparte, a name that almost everyone in Europe knows. So people thought of him as  a villain, the scum of the earth, while others look at him as the hero that spread liberty and equality throughout the countries of Europe. Napoleon was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica. At the age of nine, he was sent to a prestigious military academy in the heart of the city of lights. He first found fame during the French

Napoleon Bonaparte, 1st emperor of France

Revolution, where he commanded a successful attack on the british fleet stationed in Toulon. After overthrowing the corrupted Council of Five Hundred, Napoleon became the emperor of France. Immediately after his coronation, he started he started to subjugate opposing countries into his empire, including, Spain, Austria,  Italy, Holland,  Portugal, Belgium, etc. He was a brilliant (and some what dubious)  leader who brought profound changes to the economic, social, and political spheres of Europe.

Socially, Napoleon was a champion for human rights. During his reign as Emperor, made education far more accessible to the lower classes. He abolished the obsolete feudal system, allowing the serfs and lower class to move up the social ladder. The Hadley brothers wrote, "Napoleon's moral character was indifferent enough; yet as a friend of human liberty, and eager to promote the advancement of the race, by opening the field to talent and genius"   

Madame De Stael, a Noble who opposed Napoleon's Government  

Economically, Napoleon greatly improved the condition of France. Napoleon supported industrialization,tater totes , rebudgeted France's banks and he introduced wealth from his conquered territories. He sold most of Frances territories and colonies in the Americas to the United states, triggering a westward expansion for the citizens. On the other hand, Napoleon caused much political turmoil. Madame de Stael , a French noblewoman, wrote, "His system was encroach daily upon France's liberty and Europe's independence..."  Napoleon was also responsible for the pillaging of Italy, the destruction of much of European countries, and indirectly causing the Plain Indians to lose their land.

Grand Marshal Michel Ney, one of Napoleon's Military advisors  

Politically, Napoleon balanced the influence of power throughout the classes of Europe. Instead of the traditional aristocracy, which kept the power within a small class of people, Napoleon created a meritocracy, which vested power according to their personal merits. This new method drastically improved the living and working conditions of those who were in the lower classes. One of Napoleon's generals remarked, "The times are gone when the government suppressed their rights. Liberty triumphs in the end and..." Though the lower and middle classes were satisfied with Napoleon's reforms, the higher classes, and the nobles were outraged due to their loss of power.     

Chocolate Makes The World Go Round

Today in class we partook in a social experiment, in which we recreated capitalism to a small scale. Instead of using actual money as currency, we used Hershey's chocolate kisses to symbolize currency. Everyone received 2 chocolates, except for a small minority, who received 10, instead of 2. Almost everyone thought that it was unfair, and complained. The frustrations temporarily went way when rock, paper, scissors was brought into play. Two people would play rock, paper, scissors with one another, and the loser would give on of his/her chocolates to the winner. When one ran out of chocolates, they were forced to sit down, and couldn't participate any more. Through out the game, people were trying to create tactics to increase their chances of gaining a monopoly, someone thought it was a good idea to invest half their chocolates to a person with no chocolates and collect half their shares when the activity ended. That idea was a bust, and by the end they both were bankrupt. I did pretty good myself, usually holding 10 chocolates a nice even number, if I went over 10, i usually gave the surplus to the poor, because wheres the fun in playing with yourself? By the end of the activity, I had a supply of 10 chocolates.

When the activity ended, all the chocolates were collected and redistributed evenly among the class so everyone had at least 2 chocolates, and the teacher received 12 for the trouble of collecting everyone's chocolates. Many of the people who profited complained, but all of those who were chocolate broke were happy. The class were then given the choice to continue the game. Most of the people, the majority, who ran out of chocolates voted no. Because the majority voted not to continue the game, and keep the 2 chocolates they were given, creating a socialist government within the class.

Karl Marxs the Theorist who created Communism

Through out the Industrial Revolution, 2 major theories about economies were created. The first theory developed was the Communism theory created by Karl Marx, a German "noble". Marxs observed that with Capitalism in power it was very difficult to climb the social ladder. Marxs them theorized that, with this information, one day the poor would rebel against those who are high up in the social ladder, and take all the wealth and evenly distribute it without the formation of a government. This was the creation of Communism. While we're at it, lets get something straight, the communism you thinking about, the one some certain countries "cough" Soviet Union, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, China, Vietnam  "cough" ran themselves with, isn't actually Communism. That's actually Socialism, a form of Communism, Communism a truly classless society in which no centralized government needed to redistribute wealth. Communism in theory is a great idea, but it has never truly been achieved, and probably won't for a LONG time.

The Invisible Hand  

The second, more interestingly named theory was the Invisible Hand theory introduced by Adam Smith. the Invisible Hand theory put in effect when people to buy goods in their own self-interest. They would try to buy the highest quality goods for the lowest possible price. Basically meaning that the economy autopilots
and the government do nothing to the economy. Under this theory, small honest businesses can compete with large industrialized business in the same field. The main problem with this method is it will take a LONG time to fully work, and the time in between is going to be really hard.

The Invisible Hand thearoy explained

I find that both systems are equally flawed. With communism, all work gives the same amount of pay.  If a certain jobs for example, a coal miner have high mortality rate, no one will want to work that job if every other job will have the same pay. Inevitably there will have to be some force that will force a person into working in a coal mine, because people need coal, and that force will probably evolve into a government, poisoning it into a Socialism. Communism is impossible, when dealing with the human psyche. The Invisible Theory's flaws are that it will take a LONG time, and lots of suffering for the benefits to come in, and even though there is better living qualities, there will still be a social ladder. Personally I prefer the Invisible Hand theory, because strategically it's the better plan. There might be a couple bumps along the way but it is the best method.          
                            

The Lowell Experiment

During the mid eighteenth and nineteenth century many girls who lived in the country went to the north, to the mills. Many of them participated in a social experiment called the Lowell Experiment, which tried to dispel the idea that the factory life had horrendous working conditions. The Lowell Experiment also tried to recruit workers for the factory. Unlike England the factories didn't have a pool of workers to fall back on because the families in America were more oriented toward working on small family owned farms instead of the mandatory factory work in England.

Girls who worked at the mills would often work for nearly 13 hours every day. The average pay for a weeks worth of work was as low as 2.5 dollars

The mill owners tried to make the mills seem as pleasurable as it could, so they could convince the families and the the girls to work there. The mills guaranteed that the mills would only be a temporary job for the girls. Once they came of age to marry they were let go, and were expected to find a suitable husband and settle down. The mills created boarding houses for the workers, with each one of them attended by a older woman who would serve them meals and  teach them lessons. The mill gave many of the mill girls the sense of freedom and independence.

Throughout the Revolution the Mill owners wanted to attract as many girls who weren't married as possible to their mills. During the Revolution, girls were preferred as the standard mill worker because the male population were need maintain the countries grain supply. During that time period, girls expected to be obedient and they were expected to become housewives and take care of the house while the husband was out farming, but during the revolution this role drastically changed from the increase in numbers of women working in the mills.

When the Civil War broke out, the Lowell experiment was finally put into halt by the rapidly changing economy. Even though many of the mill girls were fired from their jobs, they all would create an impact to the society. The mills also gave the girls an education, they could never have experienced if they stayed on the farm. Many of the former mill girls became activists and supported such movements like the Abolition movement, the Women's Right movement, and the civil rights movement. The Lowell Experiment not only changed how the people thought about the factory life, it also changed the course of the century.

Video depicting the working condition of workers in England

Only In England

Recently, our class has been discussing the factories of the Industrial Revolution., to compliment this we participated in a Google chat with the Textiles Gallery of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester UK. To orientate ourselves for the chat, we watched a video that one of the Explain-er working there, Jaime, was kind enough to make. The video showed the long complex process of making cotton into clothe. After we finished the video, we found and defined any words that we didn't understand from the video. After we finished the definitions, we created a couple of questions to ask the "Explain-er" during our chat.

A child working in the mill's terrible conditions, taken by Lewis Hines 1833

During the chat, I learned a lot about the cotton industry during the revolution. The thing I found the most interesting was the poor treatment of the workers worker during the revolution. I found the treatment of orphans during the revolution especially shocking. During the revolution the job of cleaning the machines had such a high fatality rate, that the mill owners went to orphanages, and "adopted" orphans, just so they could operate the cleaning of the machines. At some point Jamie mentions that the machines in the mills were so loud that workers some times grew deaf from later in their lives.

Overall, I found the experience very informative. It was very interesting learning about the working conditions of the workers of the mill. the only gripes I had with the chat, was that Jaime showed us how the cotton was processed, felt redundant because we had already watched a video made about the the cotton producing process. It also wasn't helped that the frame rate which almost melted down as if there was a watch stuck in its gears, but overall I found the chat very informing          

The Curator's Follies

I bet that most of you don't know what a curator does, you might have heard it before corny movie about mummy or you might have heard it from a museum tour guide. From that context you'd probably assume that the curator is like a director for a museum. Unfortunately, if you assumed that you'd be incorrect. The curator would be more like a care taker, than a director; the curator's job is to oversee the creation and the well-being of the artifacts and exhibits. This week we learned about "how to be curators". To co-exist with what we are learning about the revolution, we made exhibits describing the benefits and the misfortunes of the revolution.


Our group's (group D)  objectives was to create a exhibit that would inform the audience of child labor in the revolution. We were given six documents which we had to analyze and source. After that we started working on the project and implementing the document to it, this is when the sourcing comes in handy because it gives you a sense of what information relevant, and which should go out the window. We the created the images and captions for the "exhibit", by printing out the pictures and the captions for the pictures. After we finished making the captions and over coming a couple of "hindrances" we decided that the title "The Condemning of the Innocent: child labor in the revolution" I personally didn't like that title because it's in the future tense, which is illogical because we are talking about events in the past, not in the present. Aside from the title aggravating me grammatically, i thought the poster was pretty good. We had a center caption that explained what was the Industrial Revolution and how it effected the welfare of the children. Surrounding the center piece there are pictures and captions showing how the revolution had a negative effect on the children. connecting all of the pictures are mine carts, which I felt were a bit unproductive because they didn't seem the have a distinct path or seemed to be orderly either.

Group A's project was about the advancements in the textile industry. Their titles were a bit amusing and very punny. It said that the Industrial revolution had huge impacts on the textile industry. These improvements include invention the spinning jenny in 1764 that increased the rate of the creation of yarn, followed by the British hand loom which also significantly increased the productivity of the factories. Next we had group B's steam engine themed exhibit. Their exhibit consisted of how the steam engine functioned and how it  helped improve the trade industry. After that their was group Cs exhibit of the pollution of the revolution. This poster to how the revolution caused the environment suffered throughout the revolution. A nice touche to the project was the polluted river in the back ground which gradually got more dirty as the facts came by. The last exhibit that we visited was group E's "Spinning into slavery" poster. I actually liked this poster best even over ours because of how neat it is. It showed how the revolution created a rapid increase in the population of slaves as the revolution progressed and the invention of the cotton gin.

    

It's All A Stain

Today we learned about the industrial revolution. The essential question was "What was 'revolutionary' about industrialization?" In the lesson we were separated into groups and given a field that was advanced upon in the revolution, to which they took notes on. The groups then shared their note with all the other groups. 

During the Industrial Revolution, the field of transportation drastically improved. Rail road travel became much more preferable when the steam engine, it allowed carriages to be pulled across rail road tracks. Land travel was greatly improved by the creation of the transcontinental rail road. The invention of the steam engine used to power vehicles removed the necessity to travel within bodies of water. Freighters powered by the steam engine increased the cargo carrying capability on ships and marine vehicles by 2000%. Robert Fulton invention of the steam engine boat (which had a max speed of 5 mph, no joke look it up), greatly increased commerce with land locked cities.With all of the efficient commerce, the global economy sky rocketed.

The other great improvements of the Industrial Revolution was in textiles and clothing manufacturing. With the invention of the flying shuttle, the water wheel and chemical coloring, the efficiency, the quality, and the speed in making textiles took a huge leap. The invention of the flying

shuttle by John Kay, greatly improved the weaving rate among the workers. Before the introduction of chemical coloring, the coloring of clothe was created using stale urine to provide all the colors of the clothe. The aforementioned water wheel and later steam engine also heavily improved on the speed of the creation of textiles. Before, they had to rely on water power generated from fast moving waters usually located more north.

 The Industrial Revolution revolutionized the way products were created, and how people lived their lives. gave the opportunity for great things, but also much more deadlier weapons to civilization. Without the inventions and revolutions of the Industrial Revolution, the world would a truly different place. Image citation: "Dye Vat." Flickr. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2014. .

Save the Tree Octopus!

This year we started off with a refresher on media literacy. We review on how to efficiently search topics, and how to evaluate if the site is trustworthy as a source. We also learn the definitions of accuracy, authenticity, and reliability, and judged a website based on those merits. To re-introduce ourselves to efficient searching, we used the "Google a Day" feature on Google.

The Google a day feature is like charades, but more oriented towards using Google. The game starts with three vague questions about History, Pop culture, and Science, and you have to use Google to find the answers to these predicaments. The trick is that it takes more than one search to find the answer to the dilemmas. It's actually very fun to follow he trail of bread crumbs that Google leaves for you, one minute you could be looking up a well renown director, and soon enough, you'll be looking famous clowns in the 50's. n the down side, the questions can get very irksome. One very persistent question was, "Under modern classification, what clade do birds belong to?” the correct answer was "diapsid", which unfortunately for us, was not listed in Wikipedia, but overall the Google a Day Feature is definitely worth checking out.

The second thing we learned about that day was,authenticity, reliability and accuracy. Accuracy is how truthful and up to date information is. Authenticity is the genuineness of the information, or if it is what it seems to be. Reliability is how dependable the information is. To test these three essential words, we used it on a website, a website dedicated to the endangered species, the "Pacific Northwest tree octopus". On outside, the website actually makes the "Pacific Northwest tree octopus" sound real, but we must use to three big words to find out the trust worthiness of this site. The Site first fails with, Accuracy, because it mentions, that the Sasquatch preys on the creature. The website also fails on authenticity, because when consulting other websites, there is no such thing as a "Pacific Northwest tree octopus. The Website also fails its last test reliability, which was really obvious because since when was yeti a language? Everyone knows that yeti is just a Sasquatch dialect.

 Overall this was a very fun way to kick off this year.

Tools of the Great

An open letter back to John Green and Mrs. Gallagher

     

Classroom of Students

  Great people don’t appear out of nowhere. They have to build themselves from scratch, and the most essential tool needed for this is the influence of a great teacher. My third grade teacher Mr. Torenal was the best teacher I've had so far. He was interesting, his lessons were always amusing as well as informative. He was also very legitimate so everyone followed what he wanted. A teacher can be great in many ways. The two qualities that are essential in my opinion is the teacher must be creative, and respected by his pupils. A teacher must be creative in his teachings so their disciples don’t get bored and lose interest. Equally as important, the teacher must also command the respect of the learners, so they will believe in the teacher's words. This year to support me, could you give a little more hands on experience to you lesson plans. Lectures are bearable, but not in large quantities.

       I agree with John Green's open letter to students he addresses that it is our duty to repay society for the education that society had loaned us by making our community a better place. Society gave us our education as a gift and we should repay society by making it better. My goal for this year is to make the honor role at least three out of the four opportunities given. To reach my goal, I will probably study more often and use a lot less time procrastinating.

Link to video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x78PnPd-V-A&feature=youtu.be
Link to picture site: http://smartdatacollective.com/brett-stupakevich/32123/data-analytics-study-uncovers-billions-potential-revenue