Room 611: Thursday, October 31. 2019

Today's spooky schedule is Today's schedule is DCBA

D & C Blocks Environmental and Social Sciences - Today we're in the learning commons/library to work on your land use (terrestrial ecosystem) conflict poster project. Remember:

Why is there a crisis over forested land in your area? What social and environmental factors do you think are contributing to the crisis? Does this forest have intrinsic value? What are common factors that go along with the land disputes, such as political instability, social unrest, economic downturn, heavy unemployment, civil warfare, etc.?
Who are the “players” or "stakeholders" in this conflict? What are their motives and interests in the forest?
What (and what type) is the forested land in question (Tropical rainforest; Sub-tropical forests; Mediterranean forest; Temperate forest; Temperate rainforest; Coniferous forest; Montane forest)? How large is the forested space, and how large is the area which it belongs to? Who and how many people use this forest and what do they use it for? Identify 10 dominant plants and 10 dominant animals of the forest. Are there any endangered or endemic species in this area?
Where in the world and in the country and/or region is the forest? Identify the forest on a map, and highlight areas of the map involved in or affected by the issues in dispute (locations of villages, industries, crops, water sources, country/clan borders, etc.).
How would the forest and its biodiversity be affected by different outcomes of the dispute (logging, mono culture, dams, agriculture, tourism, human development)? Has any group of humans successfully lived sustainably with the forest?
How, if at all, would this forest conflict be resolved? What is the current state of the dispute, if it is ongoing? Are there forest products of economic value that preserve the integrity of the forest? What are solutions to the forest crisis? Can you come up with ways that would provide the basis for a forest-sharing plan?

B Block Human Geography - Today we'll look at the key question, "Why Is English Related to Other Languages"? English is part of the Indo-European language family. A language family is a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history. Indo-European is divided into eight branches. Four of the branches—Indo-Iranian, Romance, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic—are spoken by large numbers of people while the four less extensively used Indo-European language branches are Albanian, Armenian, Greek, and Celtic. English is part of the West Germanic group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.

And to help you with language diffusion for Indo-European languages (remember the question about the nomadic warrior and sedentary farmer hypotheses?)

You have two charts to fill in a three questions to work on for me today and tomorrow.