Week of December 1 - 4

[3Greichaly]

Monday - Today we had no school because of the bad weather. Enjoy the snow day!

Tuesday - Welcome back from the five day weekend! Today we talked about the new weekly forum posts and discussed the new arrangements for weekly comments. We will extend the three weeks to five weeks but it is all the same concept we are just adding two more weeks. As you should remember, tomorrow the rest of the class is starting to take the huge individual test over the whole map of Europe. We went over this map a little bit and then we presented the last projects over current world issues. After that we had the rest of the class period to study for the big map test, but if you're like Caitlin and I and already got it done, we had a mini study hall.

Radical Islam

• The difference between Sunni and shia is that Sunni is the tradition (in this case it refers to practices  based on precedent or reports of the actions of the Prophet Muhammad and those close to him), and Shia clams the right of Ali, the son in law of Muhammad, and his descendants to lead the Islamic community,
• Al Qaeda seeks to rid Muslim countries of what it sees as the profane influence of the West and replace their governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes.
• These groups are dangerous because they think they are losing their culture, they hate western countries, they will die for their religion, and most of them are terrorists (but from their perspective they are not terrorists).
• Some of these groups burn flags.
• These groups basically want Islam to rule the world and want others' influence out of the way.
• However, not all Islamic people are bad people.
• The radical groups have hijacked the actual peaceful religion so that people now think Islamic is bad and dangerous.
• Islam is actually supposed to be very peaceful and safe.
• The Five Pillars of Islam: Shahada (the Muslim profession of faith that Muslims say when they wake up in the morning and just before they go to sleep at night), Salat (the prayer that they do always facing Mecca), Sawm (fasting), Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca), Zakat (Thanksgiving).
• As you can see, this is all basically peaceful stuff.
• Less than 15 percent of the world's Muslims are Shiite, or Shia, most Muslims are Sunni.
• Foe example, Saudi Arabia is 95% Sunni Muslims, and that leaves 5% to be Shia Muslims.
• The Islamic world is Northern Africa and the Middle East down into Indonesia.
• Then we watched a video and had the rest of the class period to study. This concludes the presentation on Radical Islam and Islamism.

Wednesday - Today we had a shortened class period because of The Cyclone Way. We used the whole class period for the written test takers and verbal test takers to take their huge individual map of Europe tests. The rest of us had the class period for a small study hall. We also got the new maps of Latin America. There are three sheets that we need to fill out and start memorizing.

Thursday - Today we used the first part of the class for people to finish taking their huge individual test on the Map of Europe. Then we used the rest of the class period to start another presentation over our current world issues and problems projects. We also started the first new part of Latin America.

Biodiversity

• It is the variety of life
• As population rises, so does the need for natural resources and land to build homes
• The higher the population the higher the demand for everything 
• Forestry - More and more wood is needed for varies items, there is a limited supply, and the habitat is needed for animals
• Fishing - We are over fishing certain fish, the numbers of other species incline and decline, and there is an introduction of a new species into a different habitat
• Pollution - As the amount of pollution rises for the number, the number of species falls, and we are dumping trash in oceans
• A biodiversity hot spot is a bio geographic region that is both a significant reservoir of biodiversity and is threatened with destruction
• There are people out trying to top logging so the chain themselves to trees
• Some organizations are the African Wildlife Foundation and the Alice Springs Desert Park
• In Beijing the air quality is horrible - If you breathe in the air it is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes a day

Ivory Trade

• It is the commercial trade of ivory tusks of hippos, walrus, narwhals, mammoth, but most commonly the Asian and African elephants
• Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks and teeth of the animal
• Ivory consists of dentine, a tissue that is similar to bone
• Ivory is used for art and manufacturing
• Ivory is mostly made into jewelry, but it is also made into piano keys, religious items, and other priceless objects/trinkets
• This trade is decreasing the elephant population by a lot
• The African Elephant population is down to 47,000
• The Asian Elephants population is down to 40,000 to 50,000
• The Central African region has lost 64% of its elephants in a decade
• 2012 was the worst year of illegal ivory trade
• 2008 to 2013 - estimated death toll was between 30,000 and 50,000
• The demand for it in Africa made the elephant deaths race to 30,000

Friday - Today we started class by going over the first part of Latin America, then we added the next part. Then, we continued presenting our class projects over current issues around the world. 

Ivory Trade

• Ivory trade is getting worse.
• The African Elephant Conservation Act was passed on June 9th, 1989 by Congress.
• This Act restricted the importation of Ivory from CITES Parties or from countries not engaged in illegal ivory trading.
• Later that year the International CITES ban was passed.
• Ivory has been seized by the police and put into warehouses to stop the trade.
• Burning the stockpile is a way that countries show that they need to put a stop on the ivory trade.
• In June of 2015, the US crushed more than a ton of ivory in New York.
• In the past 3 years, 11 countries have destroyed 80 tons of ivory.
• Since 1989, 14 countries have destroyed over 130 tons of ivory.

Right to Privacy

• It is the right of a person and one's personal information is protecting from public scrutiny (observation).
• Examples: Home address, home telephone number, age date of birth, gender, blood type, etc.
• Some major acts are the Privacy Act, the Access to Information Act, and the Video Privacy Protection Act.
• The Privacy Act protects the privacy of individuals and controls personal information collected by government institutions.
• The Access to Information Act says that government information should to available to the public and is limited and specific.
• The Video Privacy Protection Act says that videotape service providers can't disclose rental records without written consent.
• Some cases are Griswold versus Connecticut in 1965, and Stanley versus Georgia in 1969.
• The G v. C Forbids any person to obtain any drug or article to prevent conception.
• The S v. G has state laws prohibiting the possession of obscene material.
• The right to privacy was established in 1972 with the Roe v. Wade case.
• Privacy isn't really specified in the constitution.
• The majority of Justices on Supreme Court believe the right to privacy is a basic human right.
• The first amendment protects the privacy beliefs.
• The third amendment protects the privacy of the home against the use of it for housing soldiers.
• The Fourth Amendment protects privacy against unreasonable searches.
• The fifth amendment protects against self-incrimination, which in turn protects the privacy of person information.
• The ninth amendment says that the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people.
• The fourteenth amendment says that no state deprives any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
• There are four primary concerns of privacy: Collection, Unauthorized Use, Improper Access, and Errors.
• There are four types of privacy harms: Intrusions, Information Collecting, Information Processing, and Information Spreading.