The Great Conversation: Modern Times

John Dewey proposes that education should be vocational through the education system, it may have been the most plausible during his time. However it is clear that this would be virtually impossible in the modern times of 2015, since it is even said that my generation could possibly have to go back to school since jobs will be constantly created and destroyed. His proposition also did not specify many things as to how students could be exposed to all types of various occupations to find their “calling” the closest thing the Great Conversation thought it could be would be apprenticing. Apprenticing for each student is not plausible for various reasons as well. I strongly concur with how the Great Conversation is analyzing John Dewey’s perspective on liberal education. It is really interesting reading about various people’s views on how education should be organized in order to have a progressing society, because I, myself, have a lot to say about the education system in America at this time. I have experienced religious, non denominational private schools and public. I have spent the most time in public school on Long Island, in a recognized district. There were many flaws there and also many flaws in my current private boarding school. The biggest shared flaw is that the actions taken to “improve” the education system is not necessarily based on student feedback. This is just a simple blog entry, so I do not really feel like going in too deep to all of those at the moment, but I will write about them soon enough. This chapter “Modern Times” also mentions about how Dewey doesn’t allow for leisure, in the sense that if a student was education for specifically one job, they will not be exposed to the other various endeavors that they could have interests in. One of the biggest fears I had entering high school, and will follow me when I apply for college is setting myself on one occupation or one field and then following down that path while closing doors to other opportunities only to realize maybe in graduate school that was not what I actually wanted to do spending the rest of my life. Another fear branching off of that is also what if I had my heart set on this one thing but being deferred from a school or program has prevented me from continuing with it and then is once again left with nothing and at square one. Dewey presents good fundamentals that education systems should strive to be composed of however the methods he presents to accomplish that are not plausible. Just from these first few chapters of the introduction to the series has gotten me contemplating and re-contemplating things.

Favorite Line: "If a society wishes to improve, it will use the educational system for that purpose."
(Page 11)
This is theoretically supposed to hold true however the current public education system in the United States is completely contradictory.

The Great Conversation: Preface and The Tradition of the West

The Great Conversation is a collection of various philosophical perspectives of the Western World. The preface indicates that the goal is to represent the voices of the past, to better our lives today, in the present. I didn’t really read past the first two pages of the prefaces though, to be completely honest. The first book in this series begins with “The Tradition of the West.” The “tradition” of the west can be identified as the practice of inquiry, and how everyone speaks their mind about everything, or at least has the ability to do so. I strongly agree with everything being stated in the first section regarding liberalism and liberal education. The line, “Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant, undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining,” really stood out to me especially because I have somewhat concluded this myself after recent experiences. As many teenagers do, I constantly questioned the point of anything and everything since the only absolute result is death following life. One thing that really ended this for me was the realization that I am alive now, I am a human being right now, at this moment. I have a choice to be the best or be a waste. Ending my own own life is just as stupid as throwing away all of opportunities given throughout my life. Even though it is still unclear to me what the point of being the best is, I have understood I will do as much as I can right now to keep as many doors open for myself to become the best, to reach my full capability. I had no genuine choice to be a living human being, but now that I am I have the choice to choose to be the best that I can be or not. So why not strive for the best that you can be too?

AP Environmental 1.2 Plates and Faults

All of Earth's landmasses used to exist as the super continent, Pangea. It then broke up into huge land masses, which are now known as the continents. Those land masses exist on continental plates, and the aqueous plates are known as oceanic plates. These plates are responsible for various land forms because of the activity that occurs at their boundaries. They move and collide with other plates. Geological plates are huge layers of rock that drifts slowly over the supporting upper mantle layer.All of the plates make up the lithosphere, or the earth's crust. The discovery of plates has allowed scientists to connect their studies of volcanoes and mountains with each other, which allowed for many breakthroughs regarding these land forms. J. Tuzo Wilson created the idea of plate tectonics and used that to make sense of continental drift. After the plate tectonic theory was accepted, geologist collected information on plates and their original positions and learned that they aren't even close. When two plates collide and a subduction zone(where one of the plates goes below the other) is created, volcanoes and mountains can form. Circulation cause by heat is referred to as convection. Materials rise from the heat source as they are heated, and then cool materials further away from the heat source sink. The thermal gradient from the core to the surface is not 100% even, and flaws in crystallization contributes to uneven heating and movement of plates.

Plate Boundaries:

Convergent- when two plates collide and one is forced under the other, pulling one of the plates toward the mantle

Divergent- when two plates move apart, allowing space for the formation of new plates

Transform Fault- when two plates slide by each other in bursts because of pressure

Trenches- trenches form along convergent and the deepest parts of Earth's surface are found in trenches

Ridges- form along divergent boundaries. The mid atlantic ridge is widely known.

Fault- a crack between two tectonic plates created by rocks split by pressures

Fault Strike- the line created by the moving plates

Fault Trend- the direction the plates are moving in

San Andreas Fault- the fault that causes the frequent earthquakes in Cali.

Active Fault- a fault that has the potential of causing earthquakes

Inactive Fault- a fault that once moved but is now stuck

The larger the fault slip are, the more earth quakes are produced.

AP Environmental 1.1 Geological Time, Hutton, Relative Time, and Steno

Geological time is how we describe time over millions of years, and also discuss Earth's history. Geological time is organized into eons, eras, periods, and epochs. Hutton is known as the father of modern geology, because he began to try and figure out Earth's age and was one of the pioneers in thinking that Earth was much older than just a few thousand years. His principle of uniformitarianism discussed how Earth's changes occurred over an extended period of time rather than all at once. This opened up the doors for scientists to realize Earth is not in it's final form either. When scientists began to test earth layers for age, they used relationships between the layers of rock and soil to get a relative age. These relationships are described by chronostatic time measurements. This process was called relative dating. There are exceptions to this because of things such as plate tectonic movement. Nicolaus Steno came up with 3 principles to help determine relative age. The principle of superposition describes how undisturbed layers are the oldest on the bottom and younger closer to the surface. The principle of original horizontality describes how newly formed layers always have a horizontal direction even if the layer it is being formed above is bent. The principle of lateral continuity can be used to determine that now separated sections used to be connected, because when layers are formed they extend laterally in all directions.

AP HUG 1.7 Geographic Technology

Geographic Information Systems- this incorporates one or more layers of data into a computer program that is able to map and analyze space. It is used by 911, to keep multiple types of data easily accessed.

Global Positioning System- uses a network of satellites to accurately determine a coordinate location

Remote Sensing- collects data with a computerized scanner

AP HUG 1.6 Intro to Models

spatial model- shows commonalities within similar landscapes

urban model- shows how different cities have similar spatial relationships and economic or social structures

non-spatial model- uses data to construct a general model without a reference to space

demographic transition model- uses population data to show dynamic growth without reference to space

concentric zone model- invented in 1923 by Burgess to represent urban social structure

bid-rent curve- explains how the price and demand for real estate changes as the distance from the central central business district. This is derived from a modified concentric zone model that shows the distance relationship in urban real estate

population models: Demographic Transition Model, Malthusian Theory, Population Pyramids

agriculture models: Von Thunen's model of the Isolated State

urban models: Central Place Theory, Concentric Zone Model, Sector Model, Multiple-nuclei model, Galactic City Model, Latin American city model

Gravity Model- Population of Location A * Population of Location B/ (Distance)^2
This is very important when analyzing the relationship between two cities

AP HUG 1.5 Maps

Map- a spatial analysis of earth's surface documented

Topographic Map- throwin' it back to earth science. These maps use contour lines to represent elevation of an area. The direction of the flow of a river can be found in the contour lines. They seem to bend into arrows and point up stream.

Thematic Maps- maps that show data for a certain theme

Isotherms- temperature contour lines

Chloropleth Maps- maps that show data with colored and shaded regions. I remember what this is because if you've taken bio or any form of science you should know that plants get their color from CHLOROplasts so like CHLOROpleth maps are like different colors. Get it? Each colored region does not necessarily have to be a political region such as a state or county, it could be like polygons as well.

Isoline Maps- maps that use contour lines to present their data. Isotherm maps use lines to represent temperatures. Topographic Maps use isolines to represent elevation.

Dot Density Maps- maps that use dots to represent the density of an event or population or etc in an area

Flow-Line Maps- maps that use flow lines or arrows with different thicknesses to represent the movement of a human phenomena

Cartogram- a map that uses simple geometry to represent real places. It is less about the landscape in cartograms versus the data being represented. Linear cartograms are commonly used for public transportation.

Mental Map- the cognitive image of landscape in the human mind

Map Scale- mathematical ratios that represent the distance on the map vs distance in real life. Large scale maps cover a small area, whereas small scale maps cover a large area.

Equal-Area Projections- projections that try to preserve the spatial science on the map, however this distorts the polygons.

Lambert Projections- a type of equal-area projection. The data is always less than a hemisphere. The image becomes more distorted in shape and distance as you move away from the central point.

Conformal Projections- maintains the shapes on the map

Mercator Projection- a conformal cylindrical projection. Shape is preserved well, except the area gets more and more distorted as you move to the polar regions.

Robinson Projection- also known as an orthophanic map. It sacrifices a little bit of both shape and area for a more practical visual representation.

Goode's Homolosine Projection- sacrifices direction and distance to preserve shape and area for the most part

Good website to look at projections: http://resources.arcgis.com/en/home/

AP HUG 1.4 Diffusion Patterns

Diffusion- the movement of a human phenomena. It's super important for analyzing human interactions and stuff.

Hierarchal Diffusion- when a human phenomena starts in a primary location, and then moves down to secondary, subordinate locations. An example could be from urban to suburban. Like fashions and trends can be said to be first found in Manhattan and then in the suburbs of Long Island. 

Contagious Diffusion- when a human phenomena starts at an origin and then moves away from the origin to adjacent locations, usually along transportation lines. Movement of disease and news. 

Stimulus Diffusion- when a principle diffuses and then causes the creation or popularity of a new product or idea. Vegetarian eating habits cause restaurants to serve more vegetarian options

Expansion Diffusion- when a human phenomena starts at a central point and then expands in all direction. It does not have to necessarily expand evenly in length in all directions. 

Relocation Diffusion- when a human phenomena relocates or crosses a significant barrier such as a body of water or mountain range. The phenomena could be influenced on it's journey crossing a significant barrier

These terms are great to know so that you can describe cultural diffusion with more specific terms, the different types of diffusion can deepen the understanding of the concept or thing being diffused, especially because if it is changed in relocation diffusion. Idk I found these terms really helpful like I can relate it back to a lot of AP World. 

AP HUG 1.3 Spatial Interactions

central places- a node of human activity, usually a node of economic exchange

central place theory- developed by Christaller and described urban economic activity with hexagonal areas that overlapped at different scales

core and periphery- the core is the main center of that branch, and the periphery is the surrounding location that also carries the same characteristic that defined the core, except not as densely

cluster- when things are grouped together on earth's surface

agglomeration- when clustering occurs purposely around a central point or growth pole

growth pole- a center point usually with industry or transportation

random pattern- when things are arranged on earth's surface with no explanation

scattered- when things are usually arranged, except they seem dispersed

linear- when things are arranged in a straight line

sinuous- when things are arranged wavily

metes and bounds- how land is surveyed and divided with a specific starting and end point. Has been used in Europe for a long time

township and range- introduced after longitude and latitude were transferred to land as well as the see. This introduced block shaped property

long-lot patterns- land with a short frontier to the street and a long narrow lot behind it

arithmetic density- the number of things per a square unit of distance

agricultural density- number of people per unit of land used for farming

physiologic density- the number of people per unit of land that is already being used for farmland and the land that has potential to become farmland. That land is also called arable land. 

AP HUG 1.2 Location, Time Zone, Site, Situation, Distance, and Space-Time Compression

Absolute Location- the location defined by precise latitude and longitude

Notation of Absolute Location: latitude degrees, minutes, seconds, N/S , longitude degrees, minutes, seconds, W/E

Decimal Degrees- when the longitude and latitude are described with decimals opposed to minutes and seconds

Equator- 0 degrees latitude

Prime Meridian- 0 degrees longitude. It was determined by the British Royal Navy in 1785 and then adopted by the French since it conveniently ran through the middle of France. Since the two big shots of the world adopted it, so did everyone else. It was then made official 101 years later.

Time Zones are determined by every 15 degrees of longitude. There are a few exceptions though, such as China which has one time zone for the whole country.

Relative Location- location described by the relationship with other known things

Site- physical characteristics of a place

Situation- the relationship of a place with other places. Manhattan's situation gave it an economic advantage over places like Philadelphia because it is right on the Atlantic.

Absolute Distance- the distance between two points recorded with linear units like miles or kilometers

Distance Decay- the farther away places are from the point of origin are less likely there is interaction with the original point.

Relative Distance- often described with distance decay or Tobler's Law

Tobler's Law- states that all places are related except the closer two places are, the more interactions they will have with eachother

Friction of Distance- when distance interferes with the interactions between two places

Space-Time Compression- the decrease of time and relative distance, new motives of transportation can be used to cause Space-Time Compression