Thursday, April 21, 2011

BP4 QTR4 - Geography

Geography


Location: The island group of Fiji belongs to the Oceania Group of islands in the South Pacific and lies about two-thirds from Hawaii to New Zealand. The geographical coordinates of Fiji are 18 00 S, 175 00 E. 


Area: Fiji covers about 1.3 million square kilometers of the South Pacific Ocean. Fiji's total land area is 18,333 square kilometers. 


Area-Comparative: Comparatively, the area occupied by Fiji is slightly smaller than the state of New Jersey.


Land Boundaries: 0 Km


Climatetropical marine; only slight seasonal temperature variation and nice warm weather throughout the year


Terrain: mostly mountains of volcanic origin


Natural Resourcestimber, fish, gold, copper, offshore oil potential, hydropower, & water


Land Use:
arable land: 10.95%
permanent crops: 4.65%
permanent pastures: land permanently used for herbaceous forage crops
forests and woodland: land under dense or open stands of trees
other: 84.4%


Environment-Current Issues: The most pressing and important environmental problems are
 deforestation; soil erosion


Environment-International Agreements: Party to : Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Law of the Sea, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94 
Signed, but not ratified : none of the selected agreements 

Natural Hazards: cyclonic storms can occur from November to January

Monday, April 18, 2011

BP3 QTR4

Country Name: Conventional - Fiji;  Official - Republic of the Fiji Islands
 

Nationality:  Noun - Fiji Islander;  Adjective - Fiji or Fijian.
 

Languages: Fiji has three official languages and they are English, Bau Fijian and Hindustani but English is the main language of communication in Fiji.
 

Flag Description:

Fiji's flag flew for the first time on Independence Day, October 10, 1970. It includes the red, white and blue Union Flag of Britain in the top left-hand corner and the shield from the Fiji Coat of Arms on a light blue background in the fly. The design for the national flag was selected as the result of a competition won jointly by Mr. Robi Wilcock and Mrs. Murray MacKenzie.
 

Background: Fiji was first settled about three and a half thousand years ago. The original inhabitants are now called "Lapita people" after a distinctive type of fine pottery they produced, remnants of which have been found in practically all the islands of the Pacific, east of New Guinea, though not in eastern Polynesia. Linguistic evidence suggests that they came from northern or central Vanuatu, or possibly the eastern Solomons.

Monday, April 11, 2011

BP2QTR4: UN Quick Write

        The UN or United Nations is an organization that brings together 192 nations to help things such as human rights and other things of that nature. It started after WWII to replace The League of Nations which could not prevent the world war. The UN has the military power to carry out the decisions it makes. The charter was made as a set of rules that the member countries have to follow so they can work together successfully.
        The UN is completely necessary today because if we didn't have it then the uprise in the middle east might be a lot worse than it is. Also many of the worlds problems like hunger and other civilian problems like that. This world would definatly be a lot more problems than there are right now. For example if not for the UN the problems between Isrial and Palestine would be more extreme and more violent.
        Finally these are some of the plethora of reasons that the UN is completely necessary. The world needs the UN and would be a worse place without it. Especially with the current events going on in the middle east.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

BP4 QTR3: President's Day


   I think that Presidents Day should stay as it is with the name it has right now. I think that this day should be for all presidents because the third Monday of February rarely falls on Washington’s actual birthday.  Also other presidents like FDR, JFK and Reagan can be celebrated on this same day in February.  Washington himself would not mind sharing this day with all other presidents.  He would actually rather have it that way since he turned down power three or four times before he became president.  Washington wanted to make sure that the presidency was much more than just the person holding the office so no one person could hold absolute power.

In a letter to George S. Washington on December 5, 1790, President Washington wrote “To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential of man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.”  Virtuous is something that Washington valued not only in himself but in others.  He viewed his role as president as one to serve others and believed that the people held all the power in the United States.  He did not like for people to celebrate or revere him as a great person and was very humble as president.  I think that he would feel the same way about this holiday and that it should be for all presidents and not just for himself.

When Daniel Webster spoke of Washington at Bunker Hill June 17, 1842 he said “To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can be combined with law, with order, with the security of property, with the pursuits and advancement of happiness; to him who denies that our forms of government are capable of producing exaltation of soul, and the passion of true glory; to him who denies that we have contributed any thing to the stock of great lessons and great examples; to all these I reply by pointing to Washington.”  This is how people who knew Washington remember him and his virtuous leadership example as President of the United States.  It is Washington’s own example of being a leader that served the people and an individual that disliked having all the power and attention that makes me think that he would prefer that President’s Day remain with its current name so that all 44 US presidents are recognized on the 3rd Monday of February. 

Overall I think President’s Day is a good name for the holiday because it does not put all the attention on Washington which he would not have liked very much.  It is nice that the holiday remains in February so we can remember the month and celebrate President’s Day near the time of Washington’s birthday.  It is nice to remember the first president but from what Washington himself wrote and what others who knew him shared, he would probably request that all presidents get recognition on the same day for how they served their country. 

Saturday, February 5, 2011

BP2 QTR3: Project Reflection

1. What is your final project going to be? What led you to choose this idea for your project?
    Our final project will be a video on goanimate.com for project #2. We put the script on a Google doc. We chose this because one group member had a lot of experience with it and because we all wanted to use it for the project.

2.How is the project unfolding for you?
   The project is unfolding for me pretty good. The script is going well and soon we will be applying it to the goanimate movie. We all know how to use goanimate now and we have already started to make the movie.

3. How are you gathering the required information?
    We are gathering the info required by searching on Google and reading what we find. We then put the answer on the Google doc mentioned in #1. From that we transfer it to the script in our own words.

 
4. What's happening that you didn't expect? In other words, how has your project changed over time?
      Well for one i was sack three days this week and got to this post a little late and my teammates accidentally deleted a portion of the script.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

BP 1 QTR3: T-Shirt Travels Reaction Paper

      This movie called T-shirt Travels was an extremely good film and was very educational. The film talked about how our old t-shirts that we donate end up being sold to Africa. Some of the things I will explain are what Zambians think of Americans, how all of the cloths deal with big money, and how the people of Zambia are doing in the present day. There are interesting ways that the Zambians think of us Americans.
       Lets start by saying that Zambians have mixed opinions about Americans. Businesses usually think that Americans only talk money, even if that is partly true we don't all talk about money(only the adults & rich kids talk about money). Other people think of the US as a good place because they just don't know any better. I am not saying that the US is a bad country but some situations here we would rather be elsewhere because we Americans think we live in a utopia and are the best in the world at everything, but most of the rest of the world knows that is not true.
       You may be wondering how lots of money ties into all of these common t-shirts. Well lets start by explaining the process of how they get to Africa. First we donate our old clothes to charities who then sell most of the donations to private businesses who mark them up by about 600% then sell the marked up clothes to Zambian shopkeepers who sell them to the Zambian public. Secondhand clothes are the number one from the US to Africa. In this process the private businesses make the most money. The reason that Zambia does not make its own clothes is because the rest of the world gives them cloths so it drove the local clothing stores out of business.
      We now come to how the people of Zambia are doing in the present day. The truth is that over 70,000 children are homeless and the life expectancy there is only 43 years old. These things prove how bad conditions are there. The main character in this movie named Luka feels grateful because he picks the clothes with pride and looks in each bundle to see the quality of the clothes. Some experts are worried that if Zambia ever recovers from debt that almost all of the work force will be uneducated because the schools are only for the rich now a days.
      That is the all of the things that one t-shirt goes through from when it is donated to when someone in Africa buys it and wears it. As you have seen the conditions in Zambia are not good. The private owners make the most money in the secondhand clothes business. Also what the Zambians think of us Americans. In conclusion this movie was a very educational and interesting movie called T-shirt Travels.