Ms. Aman

Freshman Global

Spring 2004

Japan

Introduction:

In traditional Japanese history, the term “primitive age” is sometimes used to the period dating from the prehistoric age approximately 300,000 years ago. This is the period in which the Japanese archipelago was geographically separated the Eurasian continent. About ten thousand years ago, the inhabitants of Japan abandoned their cave dwellings and settled into crudely roofed houses called tate-ana jukyo (pit dwellings). These primitive people lived by hunting and fishing. In modern terms, anthropologists would call these early civilization people “hunter and gatherers.”

The geographical separation of the Japanese archipelago was one of the acts that prevented Japanese culture from developing beyond the Neolithic stage until much later. It was not until the approximately the third or second century that Japan had its first contact with the Asian mainland. Their first contact was in China. There are both positive and negative aspects to the geographical layout of Japan. The archepelago setting has both helped and hurt the development of Japan’s internationalism and as a culturally diversity.

The Japanese archepelago

Task:

Your role as a public policy analyst is to research how has geography acted as both a barrier and a bridge to Japanese development in pre-feudal times? You will follow the five step public policy analysis worksheets as a template for you creation of a 12-slide power point presentation. You will present your finding as an oral presentation as you share you slides with your peers. An outline of your slides will be collected at the time of presentation

PROCESS

1: Read the information on the following website to get a better understanding of you guidelines and requirements. TIPS.. Examine the website carefully before continuing.

2: Keep in mind the following themes:

Human and Physical Geography,

Environment,

Society, and Scarcity

You will also be required to fill ou the following Student

Worksheets:

You will use the information gathered on these worksheets

to complete your task

Worksheet1: Defining the social problem in Japan as it relates to the effect of

geographical features

Worksheet2: Gathering evidence of the social problem

Worksheet3: Determining the geographic causes of the problem (may use both

mythical and scientific evidence)

Worksheet4: Evaluating existing public policies that make modern civilizations

thrive or dwindle in the face of geographic obstacles.

Worksheet 5: Compare the development of Japan to other Island countries that

we have studied. Determine how effective Japanese governments

were in dealing with geographic factors as compared with other island areas.

Resources:

Japan Geography WWW.GOOGLE.COM

Japanese Geography WWW.YAHOO.COM

History Channel WWW.ASKJEEVES.COM

Discovery Kids

Discovery Channel

You are not limited to these resources

Evaluation:

Performance	Excellent 5	Good 4	Satisfactory 3	Needs Improvement 2
Completion of Worksheets	Fully understand the social problem, its causes and public policy that arose from it, and fully completes worksheets	Good understanding of social problem, causes, and public policy. Completion of worksheets	Satisfactory understanding of social problem, causes, and public policy. Substantially completes worksheets.	Minimal understanding of social problem, causes, and public policy. Failure to complete worksheets
Completion of Power Point Presentation	Full completion of 12 power point slides with pictures, graphics and meaningful text	Professional looking power point presentation, with 12 slides, plus some pictures, graphics, and meaningful text	Completed power point presentation with some pictures, graphics and meaningful text.	Partially completed power point presentation. Absence of sufficient pictures, graphics, and text.
Oral Presentation (power point)	Full presentation of power point slides. Knowledge of topic, without solely relying on outline for presentation	Good presentation of power point slides. Stumbled occasionally between slides and information	Satisfactory presentation of power point slides. Vague understanding of topic and slides being presented	Presentation of power point presentation show a limited understanding of information and minimal practice of presentation

GRADING RUBRIC

GRADE ‘A’ 22-25 POINTS

GRADE “B” 18-21 POINTS

GRADE “C” 15-17 POINTS

BELOW 15 OINTS –STUDENT MUST RESUBMIT THE ASSIGNMENT AFTER

A TEACHER-STUDENT CONFERENCE

Conclusion:

Although nobody really knows the full history of the Japanese due to the fact that they were an isolated civilization for such a long period of time, what we do know is that the high mountain ranges made farming and agricultural extremely difficult. It forced many to live in the river valleys and along the coast lines, which also made live difficult because of the unsettled natural environment (volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves) Japanese people more times often than not have a serious respect for the forces of nature.

NY State Learning Standards:

SOCIAL STUDIES

Standard 2: World History

Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in world history and examine the broad sweep of history from a variety of perspectives.

Standard 3

The student will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live- local, national, and global- including the distribution of people, places, and environments over the Earth’s surface.

English Language Arts:

Standard 1

Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding.

Standard 3:

Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation

Students will listen, speak, read, and write for critical analysis and evaluation. As listeners and readers, students will analyze experiences, ideas, information, and issues presented by others using a variety of established criteria. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language to present, from a variety of perspectives, their opinions and judgments on experiences, ideas, information and issues.