Blog Feed
Gambia & Ethiopia Collapsibility Benchmark
- The countries I reflected were GAmbia and Ethiopia. Gambia was my election country and Ethiopia was a country in sub- surharan Africa. Both countries are extremely poor. While Ethiopia is larger than Gambia both have the same economical problems and a hard time keeping there countries out of extreme debt.
The process in which I used to collect the information for this project was quite simple. I researched information about each country according to the 5 point frame work. I then broke down each countries frame work into simialrties and difference so that it would be easy for me to analyze and find out which country was more likely to collapse.
Although the process i used to find information may sound easy and straight forward. It was actually very challenging. It wasn't easy finding creditable sourcres for factual inormation on trade or environmental issues. I came across a lot of biased articles and had to weed out the good ones from the crappy one. Also relating the frame work to each country was a task of its on that took up quite a bit of time.
If I could change anything about my project it would deffinalty be he design of the layout as well as the concluding statement. I feel as though my design was pretty weak and my concluding statement could have been more insightful.
Collapse five part frame work Q3 bench
For my benchmark I choose the Bulgaria and El Salvador. To complete this project I review information that I gathered in past work in class taking some information and implementing it in my project. As well as looking up additional information wot work with. After all my information was gathered i had to figure out how I wanted to present my information. I attmepted to use wordpress but I had difficulty manuevering the website so i use something I knew i could work with.
Working with the five point frame work made making this much easier for me. Reasearching information also became easier because I alreayd knew what i was lookingfor and the information would be easier to digest. If I had to change anything about my project it would most likely be the layout of my project. As of right now it looks satisfatory but I feel like I could havemade it more entertaining and pleasing to the eye. Other than that I dont think i would change much about my project.
Russia Vs. Vietnam Collapsibility Benchmark
I had general thoughts, but as I began to make my presentation, I found the sources that perfectly proved my point. It was straightforward, it wasn't impossibly hard but it was more difficult than I expected. I wish I could have put videos into my presentation, however Google Docs doesn't have that feature. I want videos because it would make it more dynamic and interesting.
Gina Dukes- Egypt vs. Thailand 'Collapse'ibility Q3 BM
- My countries- Egypt and Thailand
The two countries that I selected were very interesting because they both posses a rich cultural history and are currently growing economically due to similar features such as tourism. Strikingly, just as they share the same characteristics of countries that are expanding their financial and political power, they both suffer from the same environmental challenges such as water shortages, pollution, and drought. Luckily, the two countries have the advantage of having many friendly trade partners. Overall, through research I've concluded that both countries are relatively stable and aren't in danger of collapsing. - My process was extremely scattered, and if I could do it over again I would definitely not procrastinate. I would say that researching Thailand for the Wordpress project, prepared me a great deal for this benchmark and made the process a bit easier.
- I felt that the 5 point framework was actually easily applied to my two countries. Because I have a good understanding of the framework, and I chose countries in which there was a wealth of information to research, I was able to find many connections that could be used to explore Jared Diamond's 5-point framework.
- I loved exploring these different countries and found this project to be an exciting opportunity to learn more about my election country, and a beautiful country (Thailand) that I may have otherwise not have done.
Madagascar and Mongolia
Madagascar is the 4th largest country in the world and is an island off the coast of South East Africa and Mongolia is land locked country located between China, Russia and Kazakhstan. The five point framework was actually pretty straightforward in my opinion. It just encompasses what it said it would the hard part was probably finding the sources. By finding the sources I mean if I had a score in my head I would need convincing evidence that would prove that score or change the score. I would change the effects on the website to show the scale better, for example I had thought of my original scale from something light to volcano and since I had certain highs and lows I was thinking it would be cool to show the eruption when certain things attained the score.
Globalization Benchmark : Collapse'ibility
The countries that I selected were Russia and Democratic Republic of Congo. I was given Russia as my country for an election project where I had to get someone in another country to perform an interview on someone who was currently voting that year. My country for my region project that I chose was the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC is located in Central Africa and was formerly known as Zaire. For my benchmark I chose to a Google site because it was something that could easily be accessed by everyone in the viral world. The 5 point framework for my countries was relatively simple to explain because both of my nations are very popular nations throughout the world for various different things. If I could change one thing about my product, I would add more visuals and add more interactivity so that my audience would be more compelled to stay on my site and would have more to do than just read information.
Madagascar And Liberia Collapse 'iblity'
Reflection:
I have selected Madagascar and Liberia. Madagascar is a island of the coast of Africa. LIberia is a costal city around Sierra Leone in Africa.
The process I went through the process of creating a prezi.I picked a format to capture the audience attention and made it colorful.
The 5 point framework was easy, I could easily figure out the countries' standing in them. The only exception was that I had trouble find hostile neighbors for my countries.
I found this benchmark to be easy and fun to do. I like the fact I chose a prezi instead of anything else
"Collapse"ibility - Q3 Benchmark
The countries of my project are Egypt and Greece. The research on information about these two countries was not as hard. However, it became really difficult to find information about "Society Response to Environmental Problems", due to the overshadowing presence of other current issues like financial crisis, Egypt's revolution, etc. It was fairly easy to find an approach of presenting the information. I chose to compare Egypt and Greece side as I go through each of the 5 points framework. Jared Diamond's 5 points framework was an interesting theory to assess a country's collapse'ibility. On the other hand, the framework was reflected based mostly on past civilization that does not seem to adequately apply to today world. The main reason was due to the hyper connected world as a result of today technology. Therefore, it is hard to single out a country to examine whether it is going to collapse. The process for this benchmark could have been much better if I began a bit sooner! I guess I never learn the lesson of procrastination. I should make my product more interactive and some graphs.
Macbeth- Sadie Sprague-Lott
Yadi Angeles - India vs. Mauritania
I really didn't like that there was almost no information on Mauritania, but so much information on India. I wasn't sure whether to direct my anger towards being assigned this place, or towards the stereotypical ignorance that we have for Africa in general. Either way, I was quite angry and wasn't entirely sure what to do about it.
Egypt vs. Brazil
https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/presentation/d/1CfX5ASsswwoiveZLv057CjzaoNc9bPMuav0GOr-XU6s/edit#slide=id.g328ab7e_1_49
France vs Romania
Based in the theory of Five point Framework from the
book Collapse by Jared Diamond, this project above was made with the propose of
evaluate and grade (0-10) the collapsibility of two country by comparing each
other.
The first country France, officially called the French Republic. It’s the second
largest country in Europe (with 65,350,000
of people). The capital is Paris;
the official language is the French,
and the currency the Euro. They have
a unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic government.
In the other hand we have Romania, a Southern European country, with a smaller population
(just 19,042,936 people). The
capital is Bucharest; the official
language is Romanian, and their
government is unitary semi-presidential republic. Like France, Romania also has
as currency the Euro.
Both part of the European Union and they are in a
very good condition of life in general. Those facts make harder the job of
evaluate collapsibility and the criterion to grade it. Also my knowledge in
cybernetics is poor, this I would like to change in a future presentation.
Overall by the process of making this project, I
enjoy it and learned a lo about those two countries, and I was very impress
with how those five point framework apply to any community, and even those that
we think are very advance, had their point where they are weak.
Q3_EnglishBM
Macbeth Project
Bartholomew_Macbeth_BM
Brian Birkmire Macbeth BM
Ayanna Robinson History Benchmark Q3
North Korea is located on the Korean Penninsula between China and South Korea. They are an incredibly hostile country that constantly breaches the contracts of the United Nations at the risk of losing trade partners. Fortunately for them, China is a big enough ally and power to protect them.
Mauritania is a LDC (least developed country). They have an almost nonexistent economy and many water and crop problems. They're located in the western corner of Africa surrounded by Mali., Senegal, Morocco and Algeria.
My first thought for this project was how to make my project not boring without forcing myself to do more than I was capable. I instantly thought my best bet would be a Prezi, because not only can I work well through Prezi, it is easy to make an entertaining and knowledgeable project through it. I did all of my research first; using the five point framework as the basis of everything I gathered. Once I had all the research I placed them in the proper categories and graded each country.
The five point framework was pretty straightforward except for climate and environmental damage. In some instances, it was hard to tell what was a climate change problem and what was a environmental problem. In a lot of situations they can be interchangeable so it was hard to decide which would go where.
The one thing I would change about the project would be the final product. I think having a verbal debate rather than turning in a physical project is more effective. At the end, the entire class can vote on the grades for the five point framework of the country.
Natalie Sanchez History Benchmark Q3
For this project, I researched the countries of Taiwan and Armenia. Taiwan is an island to the south east of the Chinese mainland, while Armenia was one of the first European countries to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Both of these countries have similar problems like irreversible environmental damage of its environment, they both have a past with hostile neighbors who have tried to overthrow both nations, and both have presidents who are not putting as much importance into environmental policies as they should be. The difference is that Taiwan keeps connections with its hostile neighbor China, because it benefits the island’s trade levels, while Armenia has not communication with Azerbaijan because of their dispute over territory. Another difference is that Taiwan is much more industrialized than is Armenia. This puts Taiwan on a higher range in the trade category, but on a lower range on the Environmental soundness category. Armenia is less industrialized and relies on mining for trade, putting them lower on both the trade and the environmental soundness categories. In essence, both countries have their kinks to work out. Though they continue to stand as nations, they must first resolve these small problems in order to avoid collapsing.
My process of this project was very tedious. Because of family circumstances, I am currently living in my grandmother’s house with no internet access, and was there fore obligated to use a smart phone for most of my research. I spent most of my free time these past two days researching these two countries and incorporated the information that I used for my “global trade, local cost” blog post in my benchmark for Taiwan’s information. I tried as hard as I can to fit this benchmark into my free time, but had so many things going on, that it was difficult to get a lot of information for the project in my work periods.
The Five points framework helped me because it gave me a guideline to follow for my research of the two countries. The easiest point on the framework was the climate and environmental damage category. There is a lot of information out there about the steps that international countries are taking build a greener environment. The hardest point on framework to research was the hostile neighbor category. Most of the hostile relationships of these two countries occurred many years ago. It was hard to find credible resources for this information, as most of these disputes are either settled or looked over currently.
If I could do this project one more time, I would start it earlier. As mentioned, I had a lot of work to do during the transcourse of this project, and feel as though if I would have started earlier, I could have finished earlier and saved myself some last minute stress. I would have started my research of Armenia a little earlier, as I did Taiwan. Prior research of Taiwan helped me in the process of completing this project, so I feel like I should have done the same for Armenia.
This project got me thinking about or Collapsibility range. The United States has friendly neighbors, and has friendly trade partners, but also has a lot of debt to countries like China. We also are a large nation, which put us to an advantage. We are also taking measures to create a greener environment and give voice to the people for modifications of law and government. I feel like the United States is pretty stable, accept for our trade patterns. If we don’t pay back our debt and start to take care of the resources that we have (we can’t use too much of our resources), we might collapse.
5 Point Framework, Collapse - Gonzalez
Emma Hersh Globalization Q3 Benchmark
Here is the link to my text, sources and compare and contrast on these two nations
Reflection:
Collapse Ratings: Uganda & Algeria
Here's the link to my benchmark.
Overall, this benchmark was a little challenging, but nothing that couldn't be handled. It taught me a lot about my election day country and one of the countries from my group study. I wanted to really go beyond what I needed to do for this project and even though I found myself cramming work in during the end, I feel like my overall project is pretty good. There are still a few things that need to be added onto the project, but for the most part, it's finished.
I selected Algeria and Uganda. Both countries reside in Africa (Algeria in the north and Uganda in Subsaharan). Although they both come from the same place, they're not equal in achievements and developments when it comes to the five point framework. Algeria is a little more advanced in its development of a country whereas Uganda still has a lot of trouble with natural resources, neighboring and societal issues.
I began doing my research a little later than I had expected to, but once I got to it, it wasn't really that hard to do. I did my research and made sure to make notes as I went along during the process. Once I had done the majority of my resources, I put it together in a PDF document that showed some creativity along with my knowledge of these countries.
The five point framework taught me a lot along the way. I learned more about Jared Diamond's view on the world and how societies grew as a whole. For the most part, it was really easy, but I found myself stuck when it came to neighbors/trade partners. But I got through it with some help from Google!
If I could change one thing about my benchmark, it would definitely be the process I went through. I should have started my work earlier to produce a better benchmark because I know that the information inside the benchmark isn't as fulfilling as it could be. I would have started earlier so I could produce the best work possible. But overall, I'm happy with my finished product.
I really enjoyed this project. It gave me a new perspective of a lot of things and allowed me to view another country that I probably never would have if I didn't do this project. I'm now able to talk about a couple of countries and how they relate to the five point framework in Jared Diamond's Collapse book.
Collapse Project: Mongolia Vs. El Salvador
Countries & Collapse: Slovakia/Afghanistan Alsardary
For my Q3 Benchmark, I selected Slovakia, which is located in Central Europe, and Afghanistan, which is located in Central Asia. They both are basically completely different countries that have many differences and some similarities in many ways. I basically rated the collapsibility of each country based on the five point framework from Jared Diamond's "Collapse". The five point framework is Environmental Damage, Society's response to environmental problems, Friendly trade partners, and hostile neighbors. The process was pretty interesting for me, especially the time. I spent most of my time researching whereas I should have started putting toghether the project. For the wordpress work, we put our country's sources under the five point framework and it made it easier for me to put toghether the project. One thing I do think I should have done is I should not have procrastinated alot. Most of the time I pushed the BM off thinking I had time to do it but it soon came time to finish it up and I had a bit of trouble with time management. I did put alot of effort and time into the BM though, spending hours doing research and developing the best responses and collapsibility ratings for my countries, going in deep detail and long explanation. I also spent a large amount of time trying to find photos to make the product look nice and creative. Overall, I think my project is put together well and has good information entailed in it. As for the 5 point framework, doing the research was definitely the hardest part of all, especially because you needed the research to develop a true statement. Other than that, I think the 5 point framework was relatively easy to deal with and I think I had the necessary tools to assess the five point framework for my countries in my own mind. It was pretty straightforward, it just needed the time and thinking and that is exactly what I spent time doing and perfecting. If I could change one thing about my product, it would probably be the design or the format, because I feel like I could have taken it to another level with creativity; nevertheless, I think I did a great job overall. I would also try to take back time and start the project earlier while doing the research so that i could multitask and get more done. I think this was a fantastic BM that really tested my ability to assess my countries and really learn a deeper understanding of the possible things that might make a country collapse and have problems, and how many of those problems are intertwined. I had a great experience that I definitely recommend to the students next year.