"The Only Survivors"

The Only Survivors is a an assignment intended to reinforce our lessons in Symbolic Language and Collective Learning.  What knowledge and skills do the members of you immediate family currently possess which would become useful, or even vital in surviving in a new a challenging world?

SCENARIO

As we learned in class, disaster has struck the world you knew.  Nearly all people perished in a world-wide catastrophe which destroyed all electronics and anything that runs on electricity.  In the void created by the lack of order and law enforcement, a ruthless faction of extremists rose to power.  It was their belief that literature and the overabundance of information had led to the downfall of life as they had known it.  In response, they seized and destroyed all books, documents, and forms of recorded knowledge.  All your family has now are the skills and knowledge learned and passed down to them, prior to these events.

Your assignment is to make a list of the skills and knowledge that each of you family members posses.  Consider anything that they know, are good at, or can do to help your family to survive in all conditions.  Young and old, we all have something to contribute.

At least half of your assignment should be written in narrative/paragraph form.  Describe how these skills and knowledge are going to help you family? What specific situation are they useful for?  Use the example below for a guide of how your paper might look.

DUE:  Monday October, 14th

Amy Anderson

10/4/11

History Period 3

The Only Survivors

 

List of Family Resources-

Makenzie (Sister)-

• Knows how to ride a horse and all about horses
• She plays club soccer
• Knows how to swim
  Jim (Dad)-

• Knows A LOT about plant life/ animals
• Knows how to hunt
• Has read about native Americans and their ways to survive
• Could make fire and shelter
• Knows how to swim

Michelle (Mom)

• I great at communicating and bringing groups together
• Has knowledge about how people think and act
• Can hunt
• Knows how to swim

Amy (Me)-

• Can hunt
• Knows a little about plant life
• Has the ability to be nimble
• Knows how to swim

My family would have a good chance of survival. My dad has a lot of experience with plant life and would be able to help sustain my family’s nutritional needs for quite a while. He also knows how to hunt and use weapons. This is a very useful skill and could be used to fend off predators and keep our protein levels high so that we could keep moving through the physical exertion that would be needed to survive. He could also have a very high chance of making fire and a shelter so that we could migrate with the herds of whatever was being hunted. My mom’s communication skills could help in being a big part of bringing our family and community closer. My sister Makenzie and I are both very nimble and have good stamina to be able to climb trees and run down some animals. My whole family knows how to swim so water travel would not be as dangerous. Fishing would also be possible. Some of the things that we could not do are given advanced medical treatment and also repairing technology to create something new.

If another thousand people survived in Olympia plus my family, those people would hopefully have skills that involve medical and technology building. There would also hopefully be high schoolers that could potentially be molded into this new environment and produce further generations to help reestablish our new environment. Some of the technology that would be needed to survive would be heating and lighting. Being able to survive without extra light would be almost impossible. The work that would be needed to get done would take longer than the daylight outside. Medical equipment and knowledge would be greatly needed to cure the sick and for future wound that could occur while using manual labor or being attacked by predators. Doctors and scientist would also be of use to collaborate on ideas for curing diseases that might start an epidemic and destroy all of the civilization.