GLOBAL STUDIES

Prior to this assignment we had begun the school year by learning about different ancient empires and their characteristics. This included categories like population, geography, beliefs and even economy. These categories varied for each empire as they were founded by different people with different ways of living that affected the inventions they produced. As we concluded this unit, we were tasked with the final project of picking an empire and creating a brochure that would specify our chosen empire's characteristics. For our group we chose the Mongolian Empire as we were intrigued by their history and ways of conquest. While creating this brochure the goal was to include important and intriguing information about the Mongolian empire whilst also making our presentation visually appealing. Our group divided the work and put everything into our section which paid off based on our final grade. 

As we were still getting settled into the school our writing abilities were unknown to our teacher and therefore had to be tested. This writing assignment was created with the purpose of highlighting our writing level and what each student needed to work on. In this assignment we were given a prompt that asked us to compare documents and finally answer questions based on the provided information in the documents. This was expected to be completed in an 80 minute time period which made this assignment even more stressful. With all these expectations, going into this assignment caused nervousness which affected my writing ability slightly and made be realize that I needed to work on calming down while under duress regardless of the expectations. 

As the school progressed the empires we learned about also moved along on the timeline as we were now focused on empires that were slightly more current. This included empire's like the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire. Due to the nature of this topic we were taught the qualifications a nation needed to have in order to be counted as an empire. We were then asked to write about whether or not the Safavid empire counted as an actual empire because often times some historians chose to leave it out. We were given a document to read along with the ability to perform our own research and based on the qualifications we learned, decide whether or not the Safavid's could truly be counted as an empire. This assignment was enjoyable because it lowed us to be creative in the process as we were graded based on our assessment regardless of whether we were right or wrong which alleviated some pressure. I was able to perform wonderfully on the assignment as a result while also retaining information on the Safavid empire. 

While we learned about various empire's we also learned about various goods and inventions that came from the regions. This varies as sometimes nations were lucky to be in resourceful locations while others had to develop inventions. In some cases however nations had both which allowed them to be really successful as each item affected the region's growth in some way and developed as the invention spread outside of its birthplace. Through what we had learned we were then assigned a project that placed us in a scenario that made us merchants. As merchants we were tasked with finding five rare goods and performing research on these goods. Questions like the price of one unit were expected to be answered. This assignment allowed us to be creative by choosing anything but the difficult aspect came with the research as it was nearly impossible to find the right information. Due to this my performance on this assignment wasn't the best but it acted as a great indicator on what I needed to work on. 

As we progressed within the school year, we continued to learn about the making of our current world, specifically how China and the rest of the world were experiencing industrialization. This first period of industrialization brought about great changes to the world as new inventions were created and new infrastructures were being introduced. As result wealth was accumulated in folds across the world. In order to truly understand these changes we were presented with an assignment that presented us with the objective of analyzing documents that explained various changes during this time period. These documents were to be deciphered and used to answer the questions and essay asked of us. Through these questions I was to grasp more knowledge of the events that occurred during this time period which allowed me to be able to successfully complete the assignment. 

While learning about the Industrial Revolution and the massive amounts of benefits that came from it, we also learned about the terrible atrocities that were caused as a result. Among these atrocities were the use of child labor that included the mistreatment in both conditions and wages of children younger than the ages of 10. Through the information gained about child labor, we were tasked with coming up with a debate and essay either supporting or revolting against the use of child labor. This assignment challenged our ability to not only conduct research but also our ability to formulate arguments based on the research we've conducted. Every aspect of our writing was tested as a result which made it difficult and stressful. However through this assignment we were able to gauge our level of growth and see where we could see improvements. 

As we approached the Cold War we continued to learn about imperialism and how various countries in Europe tried to take control of smaller nations in Africa. Nations like Great Britain and Germany tried to take advantage of the resources that existed in Africa and as a result changed the structure of Africa forever. For this project we were tasked with picking a nation that was colonized in Africa and creating a presentation that represents this change. Researching and communicating were essential parts for this project as it allowed us to not only plan our path forward but also share ideas about how the final presentation should look. Through these strategies my group and I were able to successfully create a presentation and share the information about our chosen nation, Nigeria. 

Beginning the final topic, the Cold War as explained to us was a time period where the US and the USSR indirectly fought to be the strongest superpower in the entire world. As a result other smaller nations suffered as a result as the US and USSR annexed various nations and took control of their land and resources. As we continued to learn about the actions of the US and USSR during the Cold War we were tasked with creating a cartoon that illustrated an aspect of the Cold War and explaining it in paragraphs. For this assignment I chose to highlight proxy wars because through them many lives were lost and also changed in the process. Battles like the Korean and Vietnam War are just a few of the many battles that whilst they are minor in comparison to the larger battle, changed the lives of those actively involved.