A Peek Into What We're Doing in Class

Just giving you a peek into the kinds of stuff we're doing this year in Human Geography class. Right now we're working on a unit about language and migration. Here are the last two posts from my class blog -- I think you can get an idea about some of the stuff we're talking about as well as see some of the resources we're using.

Recap of Indo-European Language Discussion

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

What we did in Section 2:

1. Listened to the Urdu story here: http://www.theworld.org/2010/08/20/a-persian-insult-an-inuit-dialect-and-urdu-directions/

2. Played a game where we had to give directions in Urdu to a blindfolded friend.

3. Looked at the history of Indo-European language; (Here's a link to the Indo-European language map.)

4. Used Google Maps Streetview to explore places where Indo-European languages are spoken.

5. Discussed how English and Urdu are related.

Tonight, please finish up the Language Region Google maps. We'll use those next class. And remember to check our Twitter feed for announcements/updates. Thanks.

Language and Humans

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

What we did today:


1) Review of how a human geographer can use the "Soda Pop" map to analyse migration patterns. Here's a link to the map: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HkWRP9OjFgDJ6QOv2Hz-fbOxTCKbgBbuOVk4jTiQJ5Z6m_Ce3vRaA_S3smSKuGaUvgjzKa1IB9cdK2WHAd9VYlTIS1zqrKvGHftZRErhEfsyYdaKu5A1AXOingc_4IXyHYdqpmv4iSw/s1600/Pop_vs_Soda.gif


2) Listened to a podcast about Dual-Language Schools: http://www.theworld.org/2010/09/08/learning-in-two-languages/


3) Debated whether immigrants to the USA should have to learn English.


4) Used Google Translate to read news in German and Korean.


Here's the podcast to listen to and summarize for homework: http://www.theworld.org/2010/08/20/a-persian-insult-an-inuit-dialect-and-urdu-directions/ (20 minute program -- spend about ten minutes writing brief three or four sentence summaries of each part of the program).