1 - An Introduction to Pennsylvania? Swell!

Warning:  All potentially offensive stereotypes are not to be taken seriously.  Videos may contain curse words and other inappropriate material.  Not recommended for unaccompanied children to watch.  Savvy?

Originally, I thought just doing this state would be too narrow which was why I wanted to do the world, but just Pennsylvania is already quite a bit.  I shouldn't have been so quick to draw conclusions.  I shall proceed onto the actual atlas next week, for my planning is complete.  As previously mentioned, the bulk of my atlas will contain physical then political geography.  As you shall see below, there is a lot of miscellaneous material that I probably will also add to the atlas at the very front and end so it's not just a book of maps.  For much of this cycle, I had been exploring Pennsylvania in general, not just specifically its geography, for though my atlas is primarily concerned with the gegraphy of the state, it is not just that.

Pennsylvania Guys, parody of Katy Perry's California Gurls.  If you like this video, I also recommend Pennsylvania Style (parody of Gangnam Style) by the same author. Same disclaimer applies. 

Several references were put into this video.  Here are some of the more well known ones:
1.  This is Phil from Punxsutawney:  We all know that 2 February is Groundhog (or woodchuck, or whistle pig) Day, when a groundhog determines how much more of winter there will be based on its shadow.  Although there are multiple predicting groundhogs, the most well known one is Punxsutawney Phil from Pennsylvania.
2.  Philly represent, cheesesteaks are cooking up:  The Philly (Philadelphia) cheesesteak is one of the renowned foods from Philadelphia and the state in general. 
3.  My Pops (works at) Dorney Park:  Dorney Park (and Wildwater Kingdom) is an amusement park in Allentown, the third largest city in Pennsylvania.  Interestingly, Dorney Park is much older than you might expect, with a history stretching back over 150 years to 1860.  In addition, the tallest rollercoaster in the park, Steel Force, is also the ninth longest one in the world!

If you found the Amish Airlines picture funny, here is a link to a "commerical" about it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGDGrEYwbWw
Obviously, this makes fun of the old-fashioned lifestyle of the Amish.  Lancaster County is well known for its Amish presence.  However, the Amish are a very interesting group of people.  Their history dates back all the way to the Anabaptists of the 17th century before immigrating to Pennsylvania.  The term "Amish" is derived from the surname of the founder, Jakob Ammann.  As they are mostly of Swiss or German ancestry, the Amish also speak what is incorrectly known as Pennsylvania Dutch, which is actually a form of German (German in German, which is Deutsch, sounds like Dutch, and the misnomer has stuck around).  There even is a related amusement park called Dutch Wonderland.

Therefore, with that in mind, one part of my atlas may also talk about the linguistic diversity of Pennsylvania, said to contain the most distinct dialects of any state in the USA.  The two most well known dialects are, of course, named after and centred in the two largest cities of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Commented on the blogs of:  Nathan Leung, Paul Scott, and Jason Shu

0 - Gee Whiz, It's Geography!

Last year when I was a freshman, I heard of several people talking about their genius hour projects, and I was extremely intrigued about this idea.  But when this project was introduced a few weeks ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do.  At first, I looked for things I spent lots of time on.  That included playing Civilisation II.  Well obviously they wouldn’t let me do that for my project, but I already had a plan of how to work my way around that.

You see, Civilisation II is an extremely complex game – never mind it’s from 1996 – with many real-life concepts to think of.  I think I liked this game so much because it was related to the passion I will soon talk type to you about.  Anyway, I thought I could devise a lesson using Civilisation II to teach social studies.  But then I realised that the Teddy Bear talk was limited to just five minutes, and I could easily talk for a whole hour about Civilisation II, especially if it’s relating the game to social studies. 

Rats, that was a really good idea, but it had to be tossed.  Then I moved on to another idea.  A few years ago I had started a novel, when I still had free time, but I never got around to finishing – or barely starting at all, for I was just at 2000 words.  Well, that seemed too cliché, so that idea was tossed.  I also had considered doing a stand-up routine for the presentation, but the presentation is not a performance, but rather just talks about what I did.  Yuck.  Well, besides, I have stage fright and I don’t feel like overcoming that fear.  But finally, after much deliberation, I found my true calling that was certainly related to my original idea:

GEOGRAPHY!  It sounds nerdy, especially because I can just stare at maps and find joy in them.  However, this is one of very few interests that has endured.  From our subscription to National Geographic, we have lots of maps in our house – got to love those posters!  We also have two atlases, one really old Chinese one that was printed before India had a billion people, and a Reader’s Digest Children’s Atlas of the World.  The former I looked at before I could read, and that was how I developed an interest in maps.  In elementary school, when I could read, Mother bought me the Children’s Atlas, and I credit that single book for developing my deep interest in geography.  By middle school, I had taken stabs at drawing my own maps and was a two time runner up in the entire school’s geography bee.  I still can’t forgive myself for answering those questions wrong. 

 

So for my project, I’m going into geography.  But specifically, I’m going to work on an atlas of my own, with my own hand-drawn maps, and original synthesised information about all parts of the world.  Supposedly it’s going to be concise, but it probably will go on for dozens of pages, which would make it definitely the longest thing I’ve ever written - I haven’t yet broken the 3000 word mark, but I should be able to with this.  And finally, this atlas should achieve my larger purpose.  While I certainly enjoy yelling at the television and going ecstatic when I answer a geography question in Jeopardy correctly, I can’t help but notice that geography is often undervalued as just trivia that makes someone seem smart.

 

Where is SICILY?

Geography is much more than trivia.  It’s a core social science that enables those who are literate in the subject to be intelligent world citizens.  You won’t believe how terrible people are at what I consider basic geography, and that is attributed to the fact that geography is a severely under-taught subject.  If schools like ours won’t teach geography for whatever reason (and any is unacceptable), then the next best thing is to make atlases so people can learn themselves.  And if they choose not to, it’s their own ruddy loss.
Edit:  Originally I had wanted to make an atlas of the entire world, but that is not feasible on account of time restraints.  Therefore, my atlas has been narrowed down to just Pennsylvania.  The atlas will be divided into two equally important parts:  One that deals with the physical geography (natural features such as rivers, mountains, &c.) of the state and the other dealing with the political/human (artificial features such as political borders and cities, &c.) features.  Fortunately, because making this atlas is the bulk of my project, it will clearly represent how much I've done in the project and how much more I need to do.  Therefore, by the middle of the project, I should have completed one part.  However, time at the beginning and at the end will be devoted to planning the atlas and preparing a presentation.

Commented on the blogs of:  Josh Chu, Trevor Bert, and Felicia Krauss