Florida

Pau Màrquez

Jaume Posa 2012-2013

Josep Fenoy 6 – 3 - 2013

Christian Bernal

Índex1. Introduction2. Geography and Population

a) Demographyb) Geographyc) Climated) Religionse) Languages

3. History4. Economy 5. Government and Politics6. Education 7. Culture

a) Architecture b) Folklorec) Gastronomyd) Artse) Literaturef) Performing Arts

8. Sport9. National Symbols10.Curiosities11.Conclusion12.Webgraphy and Bibliography 13.Glossary

1.Introduction:This year, for the research project, we have to find information about a country where English is the main language.We were thinking about the country, and as the other groups were choosing the other countries, we thought about choosing Florida or Nevada, but finally we took Florida.Maybe this project will be some how difficult or long, but I hope we can finish it on time and have good grades, so we’ll have to work hard to reach it.We are delivering the different tasks and trying to do it as good as we can, but we think videos will be the most difficult of the project, because it is a bit difficult to do all videos without laughing.

2. Geography and populationa) GEOGRAPHY:Much of the state of Florida is situated on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the

Atlantic Ocean and the Straits of Florida. Between two time zones, it extends to the northwest into a panhandle, extending along the northern Gulf of Mexico. It is bordered on the north by the states of Georgia and Alabama, and on the west, at the end of the panhandle, by Alabama. It is near several Caribbean countries, particularly The Bahamas and Cuba. Florida is one of the largest states on the east of the Mississippi River, and only Alaska and Michigan are larger in water area.Much of the state south of Orlando is low-lying and fairly level. However, some places, such as Clearwater, feature vistas that rise 50 to 100 feet (15 – 30 m) above water.

b)DEMOGRAPHYIn Florida there are 18.089.889 people. There are a lot of different skin colors: 61 % are white skins (mainly from Europe), 20,1% are Latins (Cubanos),15,4% are African and 2,2% are Asian.

c)CLIMATE The climate of Florida is tempered by the fact that no part of the state is very distant from the ocean. In the North of Lake Okeechobee, the prevalent climate is wet, while coastal areas south of the lake have a true tropical climate. The temperatures are so high in summer and warm in winter, sometimes a bit cold.

These temperatures normally extend most of the time in the northern and central parts of Florida. Southern Florida, however, rarely has freezing temperatures.The hottest temperature ever recorded in Florida was 109 °F (43 °C), which was on June 29, 1931 in Monticello. The coldest temperature was −2 °F (−19 °C), on February.Due to the tropical climate, Florida rarely has snow. However, on very rare occasions, a combination of cold moisture and freezing temperatures can result in snowfall. Sometimes, because of the tropical climate, they have tropical storms and hurricanes. It is said that there are only 30 days without sun.

d)RELIGIONSIn the state there is also a sizable Jewish community, located mainly in South Florida. Florida's current religious affiliations are shown in the table below:40% of population is Protestan, 9% is Baptist, 6% is Methodist, 3% Pentecostal, 26% roman catholic, 3% Jewish, 3% other religions and 16% non-religious.Florida is mostly Protestant, but Roman Catholicism is the single largest denomination.

e)LANGUAGESIn Florida, English is the spoken language, everybody uses it and knows it, or at least understands it. There is a lot of people that also speak another language in that country,

for example, Spanish is another language spoken there, such as in Miami where there is a lot of people speaking Spanish.In some places, people who work there and speak Spanish or other languages, like Italian have a badge with the flag, so the tourists who don’t speak English good or they don’t understand it, they can go speak with them, which is more comfortable.

3. HistoryAmerica was a beautiful, empty land, with mountains, forests, lakes, etc. But there was no people anywhere. That was about 16,000 years ago.The first people who maybe arrived to Alaska were from Asia. They travelled South and became Native Americans of North America, and the Aztecs, Inca and Mayas went to Central and South America. In the 16th century, people from Europe started to come to America, and more people around the world started to go to America, so the new continent was full of people who spoke different languages. Now America is divided in three parts, Canada, Mexico and the USA.The USA is currently divided in different states, and one of them is Florida.

4. EconomyThe currency of Florida is the Dollar. The economy of Florida is based on tourism because Florida has a lot of long beaches and theme parks, such as, the Walt Disney World, the largest of the chain, located in Orlando. Next to this park, there are other theme parks, such as, Universal Studios. They win a lot of money with these parks, because all the year is in high season because of the high temperature.There isn't no tax on income because the big quantity of taxes on shopping allows the state don’t do tax. Other important industries are the citrus and the production of juice, banking and phosphorus mining. Since the arrival of the special program of the Special Center Kennedy, many important aerospace and military industries have setted there.

5. Government and PoliticsThere have been 44 presidents in the U.S. history, some of the most important were:George Washington (1789-1792) was the first president and was important in the War of the Independence. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) was very important in the War of Secession. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) was the principal author of the Declaration of the Independence. Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) participated in the First World War. Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) was the manager of the Marshall Plan. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) was an anticommunist president and sent his soldiers to the Cold War. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) used New Deal policy to combat the Great Depression. John F. Kennedy (1960-1964) started the Vietnam War and the space race. John Adams (1797-1801) he was founder of the nation. Barack H. Obama (2008-?) Is the first black president and his policy is based on fighting credit crisis.Four presidents were assassinated while in office: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William Mc Kinley (1901) y John F. Kennedy (1963).They have a form of government which is the Federal Republic and the most famous. In the USA is the gun permission. For this reason, many people died. Lately, happened a shooting in which many children died.

6. EducationMost U.S. schools are public and primary education is obligatory. The academic degrees are the Elementary School (4-11 years old), Middle School (11-14 years old) and High School (14-18 years old).After these three degrees, you can study college degrees or short courses. Throughout U.S. history there have been many acts of violence in schools, from verbal violence to guns. The quality of universities in the USA depends on the money invested in them. For example, Princeton University has a budget of 150,000 euros per student per year. If the University receives many grants, the quality of the university will be much greater. The salary of the teachers depends on the years worked and the contract. If the contract is for a whole year, the salary is about 54,000$. If you work many years in the center, your salary is about 77,000$. The exchange student program consists in a student go to another country and spend a time in that country. The cost of these program depends on the country, the extension and the content. Many people say the education in the USA is better than in other countries but all depends on the money invested.

7. Culturea) ARCHITECTUREIn Florida, the architecture is different from here. There are a lot of different places to live, for example there are streets where there is no sidewalk. There are houses, all houses are next to each other, separated by fences or only grass. Every house has a yard with natural or synthetic grass, and it has contact to the street, where cars are circulating. You can say that if you want to go anyplace there, you have to use the car.Supermarkets are so large that you can find anything there, from food to tools.There are also two big parks, Disney World and Universal Studios. They are built exactly like in films, for example, you can go to the Harry Potter ride and there is a simulator where you go in and start to recreate the same scenes as Harry Potter. They are enormous constructions.

b) FOLKLOREWHIRWIND: In hindsight, it wasn't a good idea to go ancestor-hunting in the local cemetery at dusk, but that's when my friends and I got the notion, so off we went as soon as we thought of it. My mother had told me we had kin in the cemetery, but I'd never visited there before. We got on our bikes and skimmed expertly through the tourists who thronged the streets of Key West in the winter. It was getting dark when we skidded to a halt and parked our bikes by the gate.

c) GASTRONOMYIn Florida, there is a variate gastronomy, you can eat from fresh fish, taken from the sea the same day when you buy it, shellfish, also taken the same day, but you can also buy

some good meat and fruit, but there is a problem, if you want to eat pig meat, you have to pay lots of money for it, and it probably won’t have the same quality as in Spain or other countries. In Florida, orange juice is very typical, but there isn’t any typical food, but maybe in Florida you can consider Cuban food as the most popular one. And as all the other

countries, fast-food is very common in Florida, there are lots of McDonalds, fast food restaurants...

d) ART

In the early 1950s and through the 1980s a group of twenty-six African-American artists known as the "Florida Highwaymen" used vivid and bright colors to display the beautiful untouched Florida landscape.Florida Highwaymen painted wind-bent palm trees churning oceans and bright red Poinciana trees. They painted from their garages and back yards on inexpensive Upson board and then at weekends they would travel and sell their paintings to hotels, offices, enterprises and individuals who appreciated the artwork for around $25 a piece.Collecting Florida Highwaymen art has become an exciting, but also expensive hobby. The market for an original work of art by a Highwayman can cost up to $5,000 or more. Some of the them who are still living have resumed painting to meet the continuing demand for their work.

e) LITERATURE:Florida has a lot of important authors who have written lots of classic novels. For example, in 1934, Ernest Hemingway wrote To Have and Have Not, and Zora Neale Hurston wrote Jonah’s Gourd Vine in 1934. Also, there are good fiction writers, such as Larry Baker, he wrote The Flamingo Rising.

f) PERFORMING ARTS:There is a variety of performing arts in Florida and universities to practise theatre. They also have some big and famous cinemas and famous film directors.

9. National Symbols The flag of Florida is a red diagonal cross on a white background, with the seal of Florida the center.

Florida’s nickname is “Sunshine State”. The name appeared in a license plate for the first time in 1949.

This is the flag of Florida

The seal of Florida was created in 1868. The seal represents the beaches and the sun of Florida. It’s like a coin. There is the typical palmtree of Florida in the middle of the seal and a woman next to the palmtree.

This is the seal of Florida

The typical flower in Florida is the Orange Blossom. They do juice with them and it so good. The typical animal is the panther (Puma), which is endangered. In Florida there are between 80 and 100 specimens of panthers. The typical song is “The Swanee River”. The song talks about the river Suwannee, which is in the North of Florida. It is wide and long. The official state bird of Florida is the mockingbird. Mockingbirds have extraordinary vocal abilities, they can sing up to 200 songs, including the songs of other birds, insects and amphibian sounds, even an occasional mechanical noise too. The northern

mockingbird is also the symbol of the state bird of Texas, Kansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.

10. CuriositiesOrlando Theme Park attracts more visitors than any other amusement park destination in the United States. Florida means "Feast of Flowers" in Spanish. Saint Augustine city of

Florida is the oldest European settlement in North America. There are more than 30,000 lakes and over 1000 golf courses located in Florida. It is the favourite state for the young people, because Florida is famous for the parties.They have two big theme parks, Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort. Universal Orlando has two parks, Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. This is curious because they are one next to the other and they transport you with a conveyor belt to the park that you want. They have a lot of dolphin aquariums and you can swim with them.

11. ConclusionIn this research project, we had to work more than we thought, because maybe we were thinking it was going to be a little easier, but we finally finished it on time. We had problems with the videos, because we are four in the group, but we have been ill all the time, so we were always two or three in class, only a few times all of us were here, so we’ll have to send the videos late, but we couldn’t do it before.Anyway, thanks to that project we have learnt lots of things about Florida, curiosities, places to visit, etc. That we didn’t know before we started working on it.

That work has taken us lots of days, but I think that is a very good research project, even it was a bit difficult to do some things. It allowed us to know more about that special country, Florida.

12. Webgraphy and bibliographyhttp://www.stateofflorida.comBook: Factfiles: The USAhttp://awesomeamerica.com/florida/

13.GlossarySeal: SegellLicense plate: MatrículaSkin: PellHighwayman: ‘’Bandoler’’Whirlwind: RemolíMockingbird: Typical bird of FloridaFeast of Flowers: Festa de flors