Sam’s Social Studies blog

    On Friday the 6th of October, I found out about lots of interesting facts about what challenges countries face.  There are very big differences in some countries such as the percentage of cell phone users in Colombia and Taiwan. Colombia’s percentage of cell phone users is 23% when Taiwan’s percentage of cell phone users is 109%! For Taiwan, this means that 9% of the people have more than one cell phone! Not even half of the population in Colombia has cell phones! That fact was interesting, surprising and yet I learned from it! Another big difference I found in GDP rate was with one country and another country. One country had a GDP per capita of only 400 dollars when another country had a GDP per capita of 4,900 dollars! This is an extremely big difference and I think that these types of differences are not good at all. Overall I learned lots of facts about different countries and I’m glad to have had this opportunity.

The challenges that Albania face is their literacy rate, it is JUST above average by one country. Literacy rate is very good because it means how “smart” the country is and how likely it is to become a first world country. It is also good to have a medium of a literacy rate because then you are still most likely to get up to that point. The fertility rate is 2.03 children per children. The halfway line in the graph is number 106, Albania is number 133, that is very low compared to the halfway line. That shows that women don’t give birth to children a lot. The infant mortality rate is 20.75/1000 live births. This means that they’re in 110^th place again and that is also JUST above the average of countries. That is not very good to be in that place because it means that a lot of infants are still dying. A way that they could improve this is by the country trying to prevent natural disasters such as destructive earthquakes; tsunamis occur along southwestern coast; floods; droughts.

Step 1. 

Country Name: Albania

Type Of Government: Emerging Democracy

Political Leader: Annex Kosovo

Population: 3,581,655

Age Structure: 0-14 years: 24.8% (male 464,954/female 423,003)
15-64 years: 66.3% (male 1,214,942/female 1,158,562)
65 years and over: 8.9% (male 148,028/female 172,166)

Ethnic Groups: Albanian 95%, Greek 3%, other 2% (Vlach, Roma (Gypsy), Serb, Macedonian, Bulgarian) (1989 est.)
note: in 1989, other estimates of the Greek population ranged from 1% (official Albanian statistics) to 12% (from a Greek organization)

Religions: Muslim 70%, Albanian Orthodox 20%, Roman Catholic 10%

Languages: Albanian (official - derived from Tosk dialect), Greek, Vlach, Romani, Slavic dialects

Literacy Rates: age 9 and over can read and write
total population: 86.5%
male: 93.3%
female: 79.5%

Fertillity Rates: 2.03 Children per Woman

Life Expectancy: total population: 77.43 years
male: 74.78 years
female: 80.34 years

Infant Mortality Rates: 20.75/1000 live births

Step 3.

After the nation of Albania had been created, they have various problems, their Infant Mortality Rate is towering, their fertility rate is low and their debt total is up to a sum of about $45million. First of all, Albania’s Infant Mortality rate is relatively high. The exact rate is 20.75/1000 live births. This means that they are the 110^th country on the chart for Infant Mortality rate. That is just above average. It is not sufficient enough to be in that position because this means that countless children are dying. One way that they can fix this devastating problem is by trying to prevent the natural disasters that they face such as destructive earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and droughts. The next problem that Albania faces is their fertility rate is shockingly low. Their fertility rate is 2.03 babies are born per woman giving birth. Definition Fertility rate: How many babies are born per woman in 1000 women. In the country chart that shows the ranking from top to bottom of fertility rate, the top being the worst and the bottom being the best, Albania is a lot higher than average, they are ranked 106 in the world and the average rank is 133, this means that women don’t give birth to children frequently. A way that they can fix this is by telling people that they should get married, this should be presented in the newspaper. Finally, Albania’s last problem that is listed is their debt. They owe $45million. Most people do not make this much money in a year combined in Albania so how can they in such debt? I believe they should really try to find a way to pay back at least half of that money in a couple years time. If they can’t find a way to pay back their enormous debt then Albania will start owing so much money that they will never be able to get rid of it . Debt rate Definition: The amount of money that someone or a group/community of people owe. All in all Albania does truly have some challenges and will continue to confront difficulties in the future. Some of them can be changed really quickly but they just don’t put the time and effort into it. Hopefully in a couple years they will have solved most of the challenges that they face today.

Economy: GDP Per Capita: $4,900

% Living Under Poverty Line: 25%

% Internet Users: 2.1%

% Cell Phone Users: 30%

What I learned From this Task:

From  this task  I  learned  that google earth isn’t just about looking at places around the world but for putting information on it about that country. I learned that google earth is a very good source to use as a globe if your globe at home isn’t available. I learnt how to use html which is a very good skill to use when making a website sometimes. I found this task medium difficulty because the html was hard to remember and finding the information and calculating the % of cell phone users etc.. on cia.com was pretty difficult. I would like to learn how to find a country on google earth and make it so that it isn’t a fuzzy view from the satellite. I am thinking about starting up a country information chart on google earth. It will go on every country.