Cultural Geography Final Exam
Summative Assessment: January 8, 2016
Section 1- Analysis: Making connections between "The Hunger Games" and all 4 units of Cultural Geography.
There are many connections that I can make between the movie "The Hunger Games" and our 4 units of cultural geography. The Unit 1 Enduring Understanding is, "Geography and globalization influence where, how, and why people live where they do." The movie connects with this statement in multiple different ways starting with the fact that there are different levels of poverty. District 1 and the capitol seem like they are the wealthiest and most important. For The Hunger Games, District 1 is trained the most and their lives are devoted to training so that they can win the game. All the way at the other end of the districts is District 12. This district is where Katniss and Peeta come from. District 12 has no training involved like District 1. Another way that "The Hunger Games" connects to the Enduring Understanding because depending on the geographical location in Panem a District is, it determines what that District makes or does. Some examples of what a District does would be District 3 that has technology, District 9 is Grain, District 1 is Luxury and District 12 is Mining. Because of where these places are it affects how all of these districts work. Unit 2 has an Enduring Understanding that is "Humans migrate, create cultural mosaics and balance the forces of cooperation and conflict between different peoples." Throughout the whole actual game in The Hunger Games, there is conflict between all of the districts. The conflict for all of the districts is they are trying to win the hunger games and survive. In the movie the capitol uses fear tactics because they are using the hunger games to show the districts who the boss is and that is at the capitol. There is cooperation in the game with Rue and Katniss because they become friends and help each other out until Rue dies. Also during the game Peeta becomes friends with a couple of people who are hunting to kill Katniss, and they failed. There is migration in this movie because Katniss and Peeta traveled from District 12 to the capitol and into the games. All of the districts have two people that migrate for these games every year. The Enduring Understanding of Unit 2 is "Exploitation and competition over natural resources and interactions between major belief systems may create conflict." There is one bigger example than the rest of the Enduring Understanding unit 3 in The Hunger Games. The big example is during the games there is competition over things like water, the minimal amount of food and other natural resources. To stay alive the people from each district try to fight for these resources that they may not get at the beginning of the game. The Enduring Understanding of unit 4 is "People are part of groups that gain and lose power over time, creating differing individual rights and varying degrees of freedom." As people are trying to survive in the games they kill other people until there is one victor. As districts are killed, the person that was killed automatically is losing power because they might be leaving their teammate and that district loses power to win. The person that kills that person is gaining over because they are starting to show the other competitors that they might be in trouble. In the whole movie the capitol has control and the most power because they are controlling the game. An example would be that Katniss started to get close to the end of the arena so they started a forest fire and let out mutts to chase her away. All of these Enduring Understanding Units where a part of this movie "The Hunger Games." Everything in the Cultural Geography course was connected like trying to tie a knot. All of the units were connected and they worked together and kind of branched off of the past and future unit.
Section 2- Application: Connecting "The Hunger Games" to the real world.
I think that this movie is an accurate representation of what the future of the United States could be like. I think this situation of being branched off into different groups and being treated differently in each group could happen in the future. In Panem, the concepts of democracy and freedom have disappeared from America to be replaced by a high-tech dictatorship based on surveillance, monitoring, police oppression and a division of social classes. The majority of the citizens of Panem live in third-world country conditions and are constantly subjected poverty, famine and sickness. These things could happen in the future and I predict that this is what the future of the United States and Canada will be like. There are a couple of different ways that I can find the movie "The Hunger Games" connecting to the real world. One example of this would be The Holocaust. I connected the movie the Holocaust because like the Holocaust, during the Hunger Games people were forced to watch people die. In the Holocaust not exactly were people being forced to see people die but as they stood by watching people kill people it reminds you of the hunger game. Adolf Hitler wanted to establish a "New Order," which included domination (and extermination) of many groups of people. As a result, millions of innocent people died in the Holocaust, including over six million of Jewish faith. The Holocaust may not have been a public form of entertainment like the Games, the millions of children, women, and men who died were killed by those who were either forced to kill or it was their job and they willingly did it. These murderers may have been the victims' peers, or their neighbors, and maybe even their friends. In the Hunger Games, they were being forced to kill each other. Another way I can connect this to the real world is to Ancient Rome. I did some research about this topic and how it was connected to the hunger games and I found out that in both The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome, people in ancient Rome and the gladiator games were people would watch others fight to the death for entertainment. I also had found that Suzanne Collins was inspired by Roman Gladiators for the base of The Hunger Games. If there are so many connections to The Hunger Games in the past, then there must be some ways that the movie will be connected into the future.
A Map of Panem
This is a geographical map of the 12 different districts in Panem in the movie in The Hunger Games.
A Picture from The Holocaust
This is a graphic photo of people during the Holocaust, whether you were dead, being shot, or alive.
Conflict
This is a representation of how even people that "aren't on earth" know that all people have conflict because of different cultures.
Section 3- Transfer: Connecting "The Hunger Games" to my life.
I can connect The Hunger Games to my life in different perspectives and different ways. One way it was thought of to me was "Have you ever fought for something you have wanted in your life?" In The Hunger Games children are fighting for their survival, they are fighting for what they want. I connected tis to my life because I have fought for something I have wanted before. Everyone has fought for something before and something I have fought for is a medal. I am a competitive dancer and for the past 11 years I have been dancing I have fought to keep my flexibility and performance. Last year I had a solo and I entered it into four competitions. While I danced I was fighting for something I thought I would deserve and that is a medal higher than a high silver. My first competition was a success because I did get a gold medal. I fought for something against other people what I wanted. I bet that others have fought for something they have wanted too. Something I can say I would like to fight for is girls being treated equally in physical education. I feel that girls are underestimated in this certain area because we are no as strong as boys but I think that people should realize that a lot of girls can be as strong as a boy in that class and should be able to lift the same amount of weights or be able to do as many push-ups, sit-ups, planks, etc. I can also connect The Hunger Games to my life and the lives of others because you train for an event. In the movie the tributes trained together and when you are about to maybe go into a war, you train for the war and you do boot camp and train with your skills such as shooting. We all have made alliances in our lives and I know for a fact that I have alliances in school such as friends that I know will help me. Katniss made an alliance with Rue during the games and they helped and protected each other until Rue died. Peeta made an alliance with people who were hunting down Katniss to kill her because he didn't want to refuse and get killed himself. I think during the movie that there are a lot of hidden connections to my life like these ones. I think this was an easier movie to connect too. I also used the film and enduring understanding to connect my life too. The last and final Enduring Understanding was "People identify themselves through their culture, which adapts as a result of conflict and cooperation in our globalized world influenced by geography, climate, authority, and migration." I can connect with this Enduring Understanding and the movie because I am in my culture, American, I am not wealthy and I am not too poor and I have had conflicts with other people that may be wealthier than me in a climate that is not the same as others everywhere in the world. I live where I want to live where as in The Hunger Games you are put into districts. People around me have the same affects on climate and cooperation as me and or have migrated from a different places to here.
Cultural Geography Final Exam-Summative Assessment
Website: https://www.smore.com/d4c01
Location: United States