Session 1 (9/23) - Demography & Geography

[Donna Lee]

I wanted to add an interesting fact about the a spooky/ haunted forest in Japan. It is called th Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji. It is known that in the past, when an elderly is sick, you take them to the Aokigahra Forest and leave them there to die. It is also known as Suicide Forest, and people will go in there to hang themselves. It is open to the public to go hiking and or camping, but there are officials who are on standby who do check on campers, because it is known that campers go there to contemplate their death. There are even signs posted at the enterance that warn them or try to have the vistor think about the value of their lives. 

I have also heard that in Korea, there is a growing number of suicides among the elderly due to senior poverty. And with Korea's obession with youth and beauty, employers are not willing to hire older workers. And with many young Korean's ditching the Confucian traditions of taking care of the elderly, the senior citizens are feeling the cold abandonment.

[Maria Cardenas]

Yes, I agree this lesson can be a two part lesson. I can also collaborate with the 6th grade history teacher and she can go over the timeline factor and having the students choose the years. So the 6th grade history teacher can go over the past and I could go over modern day aspects of the yellow river. Then another part of the lesson can be for students to compare and contrast the yellow river in the past and present. Answering questions like: "Are people experiencing the same issues they did in the past with the river today?" or something like that. I love the suggestion. Thank you.

[Tara Corral]

I work with elementary students, and explaining how our population changes with a bigger percentage falling into the elderly may be a bit difficult. I think I would like to explain the importance of a society aging and what that means for us as we age as well. 

I believe that one of the biggest challenges is the burden many younger family members may feel. I come from a home where we already care for my elderly grandma. It has plenty of perks such as someone always being home, taking care of family members or pets, preparing meals, or helping around the house. Some of the challenges we begin to experience is when they begin age and their bodies are not performing the same as when they were younger. What do we do when they require assistance with eating meals, using the restroom or using the shower. I think it requires a big change from our current mentality of moving seniors into retirement homes or assisted living. We may need to adjust our living so that we can care for our family members, by homes that enable their lfie style and don't hinder their movement. 

Right now the biggest lesson I am learning from my grandma how lives with us is that it will be me one day. I will need more assistance when my knees give out from activites I participated in as a kid. When it gets hard for me to understand mordern techonnology I will rely on my family for help. Always be kind and remember that you will need assistance at that point in life.

[Tara Corral]

It makes sense that India and China were some of the biggest manufactures at the time. I remember learning about the Silk Road and just how much products came from china over to Europe. And at this point Europe doesn't have much resources and the United States is fairly new so there cant be much manufacturing at this point. I think I could use this chart as a way to explain how art and products traveled the world and effected movements in the west as I am a Visual Art Teacher. We can see how the change of production from china to europe during the industrial revolution may have also caused for changes in production of art.  

 

[Tara Corral]

I was overlooking some responses to see what other students had said, but I saw that one person pointed out that when China had closed itself off there was an advantage to the country creating its own social media apps that were different from what the rest of the world has. I thought of that for a bit and I can see how there was an advantage your preserve your culture and limit the interaction and cross of information. I think to the way the world is run now with COVID still being very prominent in the US and many countries blocking travel. The benefit is that you can limit disease. 

The downside to that is if other countries develop in technology much faster then the closed off country. Right now we can see how Cuba seems to be stuck in the past with the vintage cars. I imagine that if your country isn't prepared or capable to take care of itself all by itself it could cause serious issues to the people and their economy. 

[Cynthia Jackson]

And I love the essential question you created! Thank you for sharing!

[Thomas Pineda]

• Water scarcity: In our Next Generation Science Standards, Earth’s systems and resources are often studied with an increasing lens on human impact on these systems through time. I think some of the historical events presented in the historical “flow” chart of the Yellow River over time is a great observational tool students could leverage in our class. The changes that occurred naturally due to floods and others that were human influenced, such as the destruction of levees, are clear examples of the effect natural systems have on human life and vice-versa. I would use this as a jump-off point for students to find evidence of similar interactions around the globe through history. 

• Aging Society & Household Expenditures: The data presented in these sections would be great primary sources for my students to examine in Math during our Statistics or Ratio & Proportions lessons. Particularly, students get very interested in sharing their spending habits or examining others. It would be a useful activity for them to log their own household expenditures, or at least estimate it, and use that to make “percent of” proportions. They could compare their own to others’ in their class and then to different age ranges or cultures in general.

• Industrial Revolution: The 1800s occurs a lot later then my students would be studying in their Ancient history classes, but it presents a cross-curricular opportunity in Math class to research and somehow estimate what would have been the GDP for ancient civilizations hundreds or thousands of years prior. It would be an interesting discussion to see how they would quantify economics resources and compare them across continents or time periods.

• Qianlong letter: I think the letter was written in a well-prosed manner, carefully explaining the reasons for the denial of requests and littered with some zingers and ‘sick burns’, as the kids say these days. It did seem reflective of the tightly controlled and insular nature of China’s foreign policy, at least from what little I’ve studied. But it was a nice retort towards the colonizing nature of Western empire that usually got their way throughout history. 

• Barriers to Foreign Influence: Some of the advantages to restricting outside influence into these countries were the ability to remain wholly national and preventing colonization, foreign disease and all the other pitfalls that came with globalization. On the other side of the coin, the lack of shared ideas, technology and resources may have stymied some advances in society. It may also have promoted more xenophobia and homogenization of cultural ideas.

[clay dube]

Thomas - it's great that you and others are able to concretely link some of these questions to various learning standards. That will be a big help as you start to think about possible lesson plans.

All of us need to think creatively about ways to bring these topics into our lessons. For some it's a neat fit, but others might need to reach a bit. Art teachers might have students look at Chinese posters promoting family planning and have students analyze what is included and what isn't. Thinking about population, including newcomers, as a valuable asset might be another topic for discussion.

[Guadalupe Moreno]

Demography & Geography

I was very suprised to hear about the lack of water in some the areas mention due to the climate they recieve but also because a few of them are considered very advance such as Japan. It would cause one to believe that water shortages are not of conrcen when in fact it is a huge issue. Water Shortages have become a global concern which lead me to the idea of creating posters. As an art teacher students can learn the basics of creating posters such as typography, measuremenst, the composition and so on. Giving the theme of global water shortage and bringing attention to the audience students researh, comprehnd, and relate to what is occuring. This assignment would bring attention to th water shortage in specific areas of the world while leanring content related technicues.

Aging Population

I have always know of China's one child rule but it never occured to me how late into my life (2015) it was finally let go. It is such a shocker to realize that this occurnace was still in motion for a majority of my life. This can be a great topic to learn about. within a class because it is an issue that will be affecting a lot of my students. The conversation of being an aging population can be intriguing to students and to really show the density of it, the students can create and art piece using data. The students would create a data drawing focusing on a few countries such as the US, Japan, China and Korea. Using the individual data the students would color code the information and create a drawing in the style of pointalism. This would cause the viewer to realy focus on the intensity of the color thus the aging population.

[Guadalupe Moreno]

India and China were some of the biggest manufactures at the time due to the Silk Road. Focusing on the transportaion and how the industrial revolution came to be I can show the difference between the amount of art that travled the world prior and post the Industrial revolution. We can see how the change of production during the industrial revolution caused for changes in production of art and the affect that the diverse cultures had on the artwork produced. 

The benefit in reducing contact with other countries such as Europe and the United States is the limitation of change in the culture but most importantly the amount of control thouse outside countries have. China and Japan, knew that allowing more influx of outsiders could cause them to lose control of their empires. Till this day many countries do not like the "Western Influence" upon their cultures, so stay reluctant has allowed them to maintain who they are as a people. This can tie into the classroom showing how the culture can be contained within the artwork. The students can compared the difference of a closed of China/Japan to those of contemporary art. Further it can tie into politics and what is ocurring in China at the moment. 

[Jennifer Dikes]

After the first seminar session, I have a number of ideas that I want to pursue to develop future lessons for students. I will be teaching a number of units for my classes that connect to issues of demography in the region.

One of the courses that I teach is IB history of Asia. One of the themes that the IB suggests for teaching postwar Japan is to look the reasons for and the impact of Japan's 'economic miracle.' I would like to look for data to use to help students understand this period, including demographic data on births, deaths and the number and type of women workers. Students could use a series of charts to see how economic output changes over time, and the limitations of women's participation in the workforce. 

I also teach a more contemporary issues course called IB global politics. One of the themes that the IB suggests for this course is development. Teachers create case studies to teach issues around development, globalization and their impacts. China is often used as an example of a successful and recent approach to state directed development. I could develop a lesson that incorporates the demographic changes that have occurred in China over the last generation, and are projected to occur over the next 30 years. The lesson would then ask students to speculate on what impact this might have on Chinese political and social policy. I would then give students a selection of articles or excerpts from articles on China's importation of robots, increasing use of technology instead of the 'cheap labor' of the past, and ask students to explain the connections between these demographic changes and development policy.

[Lizbeth Vazquez-Ruiz]

Reading about VoteWithMe was very interesting. The U.S has the lowest rate of youth voters in the world, which is why using techology to encrouage voting is highly important. Only recently have I seen social media apps ecouraging poeple to vote and even offer registration links. I beleieve these social media apps will impact the direction of history becuase youth voters will be expressing their views and thoughts. 

[Lizbeth Vazquez-Ruiz]

Asia's demographic crisis refers to its low fertility rate. More women in Asia are wanting to pursue a career and not be forced to choose between having children or a career. All over the world, it seems that only women are caught between having children and having a career, men are never put in such conundrum. Men are not constantly asked how they balanced family and work or if they plan on being a stay at home dad. Based on Europe's history, Asia's demographic crisis can repair itself, overtime men will have more competition and will have to change their ideas of marriage. 

 

[Lizbeth Vazquez-Ruiz]

China is known for its nature, my parents in law travel to China a few times a year and spend their time hiking and visiting popular mountains. They've been to  Hongcun Ancient Village, Guangdong and Huangguoshu Waterfall. Everytime I see their videos and pictures, all I see is green, nature and water everywhere. Which is why after reading the article discussing china's environmental crisis, I was flabbergasted. The article discussed how China is the world's largest producer of coal. Coal mining releases emissions that can contribute to acid rain and respiratory illnesses. Coal mining can also affect water quality and contributes to pollution. 

 

[Brigid Schmidt]

Emperor Qianlong's letter starts off by thanking King George for the Macartney mission which was to secure diplomatic relations and improve their trade relations. There are theories on whether his letter was arrogant or strategic. Was Britain a military threat to the Qing Dynasty? Qianlong gave Macartney this letter for King George III, in which he refused the British requests of trading restrictions to be more relaxed, the procurement of the small island of Zhoushan for British traders to reside, and to establish a permanent British Embassy in Beijing. In his letter, he refers to them as "wild ideas and hopes..." and he ends the letter with a warning! After our class discussion and now re-reading it, I am still unsure of which side I fall on! 

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