In my social studies class our teacher, Ms. Kitner, asked us to write a paper about how the location of ancient Greece impacted how they lived. Today I stayed home from school because I was sick, and my dad made me go with him to Xavier and write also about how where we live in New Orleans impacts our lives. So here it is:
The location of ancient Greece infuenced how the Greeks lived because the Greeks lived in a hot and dry climate with a rocky soil so they couldn’t grow grass or most of the other produce items that sheep and cows eat. This made it hard to herd animals. The Greeks could grow a few produce items including olives, grapes, apricots, and a few other things. From the grapes the Greeks made wine and juice, and from the olives came olive oil. They could trade all of the things for other items across the sea. The Greeks, who lived on a peninsula, were almost completely surounded by the Mediterranean sea. This gave them the advantages of trade (by boat) and they could also visit other places across the Mediterranean sea (also by boat.) Where they weren’t surrounded by water, the Greeks had many mountains which made it dificult to interact with surrounding city-state. So as you can see, the location of ancient Greece greatly impacted how the ancient Greeks lived.
One more place where the location deeply impacts how that location’s civilions live is where me and my immediate family live: New Orleans. This is true for many reasons but I will only focus on three. They are language, music, and food.
The language that we speak mostly here down here is English, but because we live in such a diverse community there are also many others including French, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Spanish. Even English though in New Orleans is influenced by other languages. They say for example I am going to make groceries. This comes from the French.
The native music down here is stuff like Jazz and the Blues. We get these from the past because of how the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico, so here we are a major trade port. Because of this we get many ideas and items from the other places and, years ago, this was a main area where people traded slaves stolen from Africa and other places. When the slaves would get a break from work on Sundays they would go and tell stories or make music. So we got African music and it mixed like gumbo and evolved into the Jazzy music that we know and love today.
Finally, our food is very greatly impacted by our position on the gulf. For emample we get many sea foods incuding crawfish, shrimp, lobster, crab, many other types of crustacions, fish, and even alligator. We use these in many dishes. For example we make crawfish monica or stuffed crab or shrimp etoufé. We also, for reasons unkown, tend to use alot of spices in all of our foods. My dad just told me it was to preserve the food.
And so, our location or the location of any community will greatly affect how the people in that community live.
