Time Adventure

I could feel the wind rushing by my face as I sped backwards into time. It was June 12, 2011, but by now I was probably in the early 1980s. Why did I do this again? I thought, dodging a plane that was spiraling down towards what I guessed was Scotland.

It all started last month, when my teacher, Dr. Brainstorm, assigned us all to invent something new, something that no one had ever invented before. My friend Alice created a solar powered can opener, Davie created canine contact lenses, but I made the best invention of all – a time machine! Dr. Brainstorm said that my invention was so good, that all of the class just had to try it. He suggested that I take the class on a tour of what we had just learned in History class. I agreed, but first I had to explain the glitch in the system. I could go anywhere I wanted to go, but after an hour there I had to travel somewhere else or I would be transported back to the beginning of time and stuck there. The whole class agreed that the danger was part of the thrill, so I merely shrugged, turned to my time machine, and said: ‘First Stop: Pre-Historic Kenya.’

The class oohed and ahhed as the room turned first purple, then green. Then suddenly, the time machine sucked the whole class into it and burst through the History class ceiling. We soared into the sky, twisting and whirling. Everything was a blur. The class screamed as we broke through the clouds and flew dangerously close to an airplane that was about to crash. I could hear Alice’s high-pitched scream above all of the other voices and it made me laugh.

So, here I was, going through centuries as if they were seconds, and all I could think was – I miss 2011. After a couple of minutes, we finally began to slow down. We went back down through the clouds and landed on the savanna of Kenya. We climbed out carefully, looking around in great wonder. There were animals, animals everywhere. I stared in awe at the lions lying lethargically in the shade of a rock. This was better than a safari! But I made myself focus on the task at hand – after all, we only had an hour. ‘Come on, you guys, let’s go look for some early humans!’ I called across to the rest of the group.

We trekked across the savanna, staring in wonder at the great sights but also taking care not to bother any of the animals. Then, suddenly, I came to a stop. ‘Look over there!’ I hissed, pointing to the beginning of a forest. We could see the outline of an apelike creature. In fact, if it wasn’t holding what looked like a makeshift spear, I would have thought he was an ape. He was running towards us, holding the spear in his hand. As he came closer, I could see him in more detail. ‘Homo Habilis,’ I explained to the rest of the class. ‘Also known as the handyman – he’s the guy who made the first tools. Now back away slowly, and let’s hope that he doesn’t see us.’ He came closer, still running and with a fierce expression on his face. ‘Um, guys- I think we should move.’ I said, starting to get a bit panicky now. The class didn’t listen to me –they were gazing at Homo Habilis, transfixed. ‘Move!’ I shouted, and finally Dr. Brainstorm snapped out of it. ‘Come on you guys,’ he said, and started herding them away from the path of the ape-man. What is he chasing after? I wondered. Then, I saw it – an antelope running, graceful and quick. However, it was getting tired, and Homo Habilis was gaining on it. Finally he reached it, and quickly stabbed the antelope in the neck with the spear. With a sickening moan, the antelope crumpled, and the ape-man slung it over his shoulder and started walking directly towards us. ‘Time to go,’ I said, nervous. We rushed back to the time machine, looking over our shoulders to make sure he wasn’t following us. Finally we reached it, and I quickly said, ‘Next stop – the Fertile Crescent.’

We made the same journey, just shorter and into the future this time. ‘Maria, do you think you could teach us a bit about the Fertile Crescent once we get out of this machine?’ Dr. Brainstorm requested. ‘Yeah, sure,’ I said, mentally going over what we learned in class.

‘Okay, guys, listen up,’ I said as we clambered out of the time machine. Before we step out into the unknown,’ I said dramatically, ‘I’m just going to brief you on some of the main points of Mesopotamia and why I decided to take you guys here anyway. So what we are looking at right now is one of the world’s first civilizations. This magnificent view,’ I said, sweeping my arm, ‘is where we can find out why people organize themselves into larger communities.’

‘Now, guys, let’s take some notes!’ Dr. Brainstorm said cheerfully.

‘Alright,’ I said, sort of nervous.

‘This is what you should write down,’ I said, pointing at my notebook.

· This is the Middle East

· This is where the growth and behavior of plants and animals became easier, humans learned how to control it

· Farming was fully established, they soon had extra food called surplus

· This was where the hunter-gatherers stopped being nomadic and settled down

‘Oh guys, look!’ I said, abandoning my pretense of teaching the class. ‘This is perfect timing! We’re able to see them using the wheel for the first time! That’s what Sumerians are most famous for – for inventing the wheel.’ ‘Coooool,’ Davie said, looking at a man moving a wheelbarrow full of grains. ‘Those grains are probably going to be stored as surplus,’ I said. ‘And look at that man over there!’ He was sitting on a huge stool with pictographs depicted on it and was being carried. He had people on each side of him with big fans to keep him cool and the flies off.

‘Guys, this place has basically all of the characteristics of a civilization,’ I said, getting back on topic. ‘They have specific jobs, like the man who’s wheeling the wheelbarrow, they have social classes, like the man on the stool who is all high and mighty, they trade their surplus, they have clear leadership, they have a writing system like the pictographs on the stool, and they definitely have a stable food supply.’

While we were looking around, I could see the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates on either side of me. I suppose those were what helped with the compulsory irrigation system, which helped the surplus of food and helped to prevent famine. I checked my watch and gasped – we had 2 minutes left before we would be transported to the beginning of time!

‘Gather around,’ Dr. Brainstorm called to our class. ‘We’re ready for the next location.’

‘Next stop is Ancient Egypt.’ I hurried to say.

Once we arrived, I could finally breathe again. It looked exactly like I expected. I looked around, and on my left, I could see the Nile. It was their main source of water, in fact, their main source of everything. It was flooding season, which meant that the Nile was bringing rich silt onto its banks. This fertilized the soil and made it easier to farm. I could see many boats travelling down the river, most likely to transport goods to trade. I turned away from the Nile, eager to see the other sites that looked so real and so new. I observed that there were many temples, for many different gods. This was because the Ancient Egyptians were polytheistic.

Suddenly, Dr. Brainstorm became adventurous. ‘Come on, class! Let’s go explore a pyramid!’ He ushered us into the closest pyramid, past the immobile guards. There isn’t much I can say to describe it – all I can say is that while the afterlife is a big thing in Ancient Egypt, dried up dead bodies are not very pretty.

‘All right, time to go!’ I called. We only had 5 minutes left. ‘Dr. Brainstorm, we can only go to one more stop – should it be India or China?’ I asked. ‘Oh, let’s make it Ancient India, shall we,’ he said airily.

‘Alright then: Next stop, Ancient India!’ I said loudly in the general direction of the time machine. Again we all felt the familiar suction feeling, and then we were whirling through time and through space.

We landed in the middle of a big city that I assumed was New Delhi. It was very busy, but that wasn’t the interesting part. The interesting part was that I had a view of nearly everything. There was a gigantic mountain range behind me that I could see by twisting my head, then when I looked over to my sides I could almost see the tips of the East and West Ghats.

‘Guys, let’s walk along the river!’ Dr. Brainstorm said happily. He just loves this stuff, I thought. We hiked over through the streets and alleyways of New Delhi for half an hour until we finally reached what must have been the Ganges River. ‘Oh no, it’s monsoon season!’ Dr. Brainstorm said excitedly as a huge cloud began to hover above our path. In only a matter of 2 minutes, the cloud had burst and it was raining like I had never seen it before. ‘June to September is monsoon season, then,’ Dr. Brainstorm reminded us. ‘We have to go,’ I reminded him. ‘After all, we only have half an hour and it’ll take us at least 25 minutes to reach our time machine again.’ We hurried back to our time machine, taking in the lush landscape and breathing in the never-polluted air of the ancient countries. I was sort of sad, because I knew that if I went to India in the present, it wouldn’t be nearly as nice as it was then. Oh well, I thought, and sadly walked back with the rest of the group. ‘Last stop – Home,’ I said, my voice wobbly. We were sucked into the time machine yet again, and the last thing I saw was a round Buddha’s belly painted on the building across from the time machine. ‘Goodbye’ I whispered.

The Taj Mahal

This is the Taj Mahal:

The story of the Taj Mahal is this:
One day, the emperor of India's son decided to go find himself a wife. He went to the market, and there he found a beautiful woman. They fell in love within the first 10 minutes of knowing each other, and they were wed. The couple did many great deeds for the empire, and eventually the emperor's son became known as Shah Jahan. Then the emperor grew sick and died, leaving Shah Jahan to become emperor. He did a lot of good stuff for the empire as emperor, and he greatly enjoyed leading the empire. Then he and his wife went on a journey. Once there, his wife became pregnant for the 14th time. They were both overjoyed, but during the birth of the child, Mumtaz Mahal, his wife, grew sick and died. Shah Jahan was upset beyond belief. He went back to his great palace, donned his white robes of mourning, and lost interest in leading the empire. Mumtaz Mahal's last wish was to make the world remember the great love the two of them had, so Shah Jahan spent many days and many nights thinking about what to do to make the world remember their great love. Eventually, he came up with an idea - to create a huge memorial building for Mumtaz Mahal. He immediately set many workers onto the job, and it ended up magnificent, like this:
He then had an even better idea - when he died, he was going to have a black memorial building right across from Mumtaz Mahal's! Unfortunately, he was later conquered by his cousin and forced into a prison, where he stayed for nine years before he died. He never got his memorial, but his wife got her wish - to let the whole world know how great their love was. And this is signified by the Taj Mahal.

Buddhist Eightfold Path

This is the Buddhist Eightfold Path:
Right Effort
Right Liveliness
Right Action
Right Speech
Right Intentions
Right View
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
Right Action and Right Speech are the ones that are easiest for me to incorporate into my life. They are both principles of ethical conduct, and they basically mean to always do the right thing and to say the right thing, never to insult or to attempt to gain something for one's own selfish desire. When someone provokes me, I can't just snap back, but I can incorporate 'right speech' and reply nicely or not at all. The same thing applies to right action.

Reflection on Maps

Physical features, climate, and elevation all affect each other. One example of how they affect each other could be a desert - the desert, being the physical feature, is only created by the climate of that area, which is a very arid, dry climate. If the desert had a tropical climate, it wouldn't be a desert!
I learned a lot from this mapping project, and it wasn't all just about India. I learned that in any country, the physical features depend on the climate, and the elevation somewhat depends on the physical features. Humans tend to settle in places where there's enough natural resources, and the resources depend on physical features, the climate, and also the elevation.

Shiva

The Hindu god I decided to research is the god Shiva. Shiva is the destroyer, but he is not evil. He is just responsible for change both in the form of death and destruction and in the positive sense of destroying the ego, the shedding of old habits and bad attachments. He is also the god of the yogis. In Hinduism, destruction creates a path for a new creation of the universe, a new opportunity for truth, goodness and beauty. There are many different attributes of Shiva. He carries around a trident , he is often seated on a tiger skin or wears it, because tigers represent the mind. The sound of Shiva's drum is said to maintain the rhythm of the heartbeat. He lives on Mount Kailasa in the Himalayas, and his 'vehicle' is the white bull called Nandi, or 'the joyful'. Shiva is one of the mainly worshiped gods. He is worshiped everywhere in India, and that is because he is part of so much of Hinduism. He affects Hindu's lives in so many different ways that they worship him in order to have a good life.

Mohenjo Daro (National Geographic Article)

In 1911, archaeologists first visited Mohenjo Daro, an ancient ruin on the Indus River. They excavated there for a long time, but they still haven’t figured out who occupied the city. The city has no flamboyant palaces, temples, or monuments. We still aren’t sure what type of government there was. However, we do know that modesty, cleanliness, and order were preferred, that pottery and tools of copper and stone were standardized, and that there was a system of tightly controlled trade. The city was very wealthy and had high stature.

In modern Pakistan, it’s located in the Larkana district of Sindh province in Pakistan. With no evidence of kings or queens, Mohenjo Daro was most likely a city-state.

There were many prized artifacts found – for example, a miniature bronze statuette of a female, known as the dancing girl. This statuette was discovered in 1926. There were also a few stone sculptures of males found broken, which archaeologists also found interesting.

Another mystery of Mohenjo Daro is what ended the civilization. There is no evidence of any flooding destroying the city, and the city wasn’t totally abandoned either. Archaeologists are still researching today, but there was no evidence found yet.

Ancient Egypt Reflection

For our Ancient Egypt Reflection, we were supposed to write about which IB Learner Profiles we had exhibited throughout the unit as well as which Approaches to Learning Categories we showed.

For the approaches to learning categories, I think the one that I showed the most was Communication. The three points are to present information with a variety of formats, to understand how visual information communicates ideas, and to demonstrate good speaker and audience behavior. This was something I definitely did because of our end-of-unit presentations, where everybody did a presentation on something different. Also, we all drew pictures that resembled Ancient Egyptian art that had a meaning but were free to interpretation, which also falls under communication.

During the section of the unit where we were taking notes, I used problem solving and thinking skills as well. There was a lot that we learned about the Nile, where we had to recognize cause and effect relationships.

For the learner profile, there were a couple that I showed, other than communicators. I was an inquirer for a lot of the unit when we were learning about the Nile, because it was an interesting unit that I didn't really know much about.

I was a risk-taker when I did my presentation by trying to talk more to the class and do less reading, whether from cue cards or from the PowerPoint. It worked for most of the time, I only forgot what I was going to say once.

Lastly, I think the whole class demonstrated being knowledgeable this unit. We all explored different aspects of Ancient Egypt on our own, and finally at the end, everybody presented the topic that they found to be interesting.