Free Critical Thinking On Community Activity Reflection

The activity that I was involved was a party that involved friends from different geographic regions around the world. At the party, there were foods and music from different cultures of the world. In the course of the party I got into conversations with a student from South Africa. We talked about the differences between life in South Africa and that of the United States. One of the key things we discussed was the difference in climate between both regions. The student explained that the climate in his country was much warmer than it is in the United States the whole year. In the United States we have seasons of hot humid summers and cold winters which are not evident in many African countries. The difference in climate led me to question him about whether he has been to countries around the equator. Apparently, he had been to a few countries in East Africa that were near the equator.
According to him, regions around the equator are warm all year round. Another important concept that we discussed was the type of mountains that are found in Africa. My new friend explained that they are a number of volcanic mountains in different regions of Africa. The most significant mountain that my friend referred to was the Kilimanjaro which is considered to be the highest mount in the African continent. This is in line with the quiz that we took in class regarding the location of different geographic physical features around the world.
I learnt from the discussion, Mount Kilimanjaro is located in Tanzania, a country that is located in East Africa. Other mountains that were mentioned by my friend included Mt. Kenya and Mt. Elgon in the East African nation of Kenya. Our talk about climate and mountains led to a discussion about urbanization and agriculture in Africa and the United States. Just like in the United States, urbanization has led to the rise of major cities in Africa such as Lagos in Nigeria, and South Africa’s capital of Pretoria. Urban lifestyles in Africa and the United States have affected agriculture because most young population has left the rural areas in search of job opportunities. However, I came to learn from my friend that a great number of economies in Africa heavily rely on agriculture as their backbone. A good example of agricultural nation is Kenya which is known for the production of commercial tea and coffee. One of the key distinctions that my friend and I established regarding agriculture in Africa is that it employs human labor. Unlike the United States that enjoys large amount of capital endowments and technology, Africa continues to lag behind in terms of mechanized agriculture. Our talk about agriculture is in line with our class discussion of urbanization and agriculture in various parts of the world.
Another idea that was brought out in our discussion was the idea of the time difference between the United States and countries in Africa. My friend estimated that most countries are about 8 hours ahead with regards to the United States. This led to connect to the idea that longitudes affect time. The variation in time between the Africa is caused by the fact that both regions are located on different longitudes. It is as a result of this differential latitude that people flying from Africa or the United States either gain or lose hours.