Astronomy 1110, Summer 2003

MTWRF: 11 AM - 12:35 PM

Syllabus

Course website: http://webct.colorado.edu

Backup: http://bogart.colorado.edu/~weissj/ASTR1110

Welcome to astronomy 1110 (aka "The Solar System"). This class is nominally about planets. Planets are an amazingly varied lot, ranging for sizzling hot (Venus), to icy cold (Pluto), from tenuous enough to float on water (Saturn), to virtual wrecking-balls of iron (Mercury). However, we can understand all of them with some basic physics, chemistry and geology (and with a pinch of biology thrown in for flavor).

This class has another purpose, however. While planets are a massively cool topic to study, we are also looking to teach you about science (which plays an amazingly key role in our society, yet is generally poorly understood), critical thinking, persuasive writing and how to learn on your own. While we won't spend a lot of time talking about these topics, they are built into the work you'll be doing this term. Try to be aware of these goals as well as the nominal course material!

The Structure of the class

In this class we'll be doing a lot of in-class activities. (A mix of demos, experiments, group activities, discussions, etc.) As such, it is imperative that you attend class. Furthermore, you need to do the assigned reading before class each day. I will be giving (open-book) reading quizzes at the start of class each day. The readings for each class will be relatively short, so if you keep up, it shouldn't be too much work. As you have probably gathered, I won't be lecturing much. I'm avoiding this staple of college education because it's boring, it doesn't teach very well, it leads to a fact-oriented science class (rather than a thinking-oriented class) and, frankly, I'm none too fond of my own voice.

A word about the textbook. The text is The Cosmic Perspective, 2^nd edition by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider and Voit. All four authors are associated with this fine university (Donahue and Voit are alumni of our graduate program, Bennett is research faculty and Schneider — who wrote the planetary chapters — is rostered faculty member.) I have selected this book because:

• It reads well.
• It is used by many of our astronomy classes here at CU (so you can keep it for the next class or buy a copy from a friend).
• The planetary chapters are complete and current.
• The book focuses on basic process rather than listing each planet and its properties.

The last point is the really key one. By the way, this summer is the last time this edition of the textbook will be used here. (The third edition hits the market this fall. Alas, too late for us.) If you are pondering taking Astronomy 1120 (the follow-up class to this one), you might want to do it during B-term so you can spare yourself buying a new book. (Also, the instructor, Cori Krauss, is a very good teacher.)

Assignments

Your grade will be based on the following:

Weekly Homework (5 total)	15 %
Weekly Essay (5 total, lowest score dropped)	20%
Weekly Quizzes (4 total)	15%
Journal	10%
In-class work	20%
Observing Exercises	10%
Final exam	10%

Homeworks

Homework will be due each Wednesday at the beginning of class. Homework turned in after this time will be considered late. Due to the compressed nature of the course, late work is problematic. So we'll not be accepting late work, except by prior arrangement. (And only then in special cases.)

Homework will consist of a mix of computational and short-answer questions from the book. See the rubrics page to learn how the problems will be graded. In all problems, what we really want to see is how you came to a particular answer. Always include text explaining your steps, even in computational problems.

The goal for these assignments is not pointless busy-work, but for you to explore the concepts in each chapter a bit on your own. Many people can only really learn new concepts and facts by actively using them. Try to approach these problems with this in mind.

Essays

Each Wednesday, along with the homeworks, you'll hand in (separately) a short essay. The essays should be about 2 pages in length and will be answering a question I pose in the homework assignment. The goal of the essay is not to pick the right answer, but to explain why you prefer your answer. A good essay should start by posing the question (and maybe explaining why it's interesting) and giving your answer. The opening paragraph should also briefly summarize your reasons for that answer. The next several (about 3) paragraphs should explain each of your reasons more fully. The final paragraph should summarize the arguments and conclude.

The grading rubric for the essays is also on the rubrics page. We are particularly interested in how you reason to your answer. Spelling and grammar will count as part of clarity, but minor errors will not cost you points. The goal of these essays is for you to learn how to make a good argument based on observations, data and accepted theories.

Weekly Quizzes

Each Friday I will give you a short (15 minutes) quiz. The quiz will have 8 multiple-choice items and 2 short-answer items. They will be open-book, but be warned, that is not always a benefit! If you've read the material and understand most of it, open-book tests are to youy benefit. But if you haven't been keeping up, you'll waste most of your time trying to find things. Prepare accordingly.

Journal

You will be keeping a journal of your thoughts and questions about this class. Each Friday the journals will be turned in for evaluation. (Again, see rubric page for details.) I'll return them on Monday with comments and responses. You can keep your journal in a binder, a notebook or on a computer. The only style requirement is that I need to be able to read it reasonably easily. Beyond that, grammar and spelling aren't very important.

Your journal should have an entry for most class days. The entry can include your thoughts about the reading (perhaps you might want to outline the points of the reading or comment on what you thought was most important or most interesting to you), questions from the readings, thoughts about class, about what you're learning or about how you are learning in this class. A given day need not include all of these elements, but you should have a mix of them included over the course of a week.

The goal of the journals is to encourage you to reflect on what you're learning and how you are learning it. Hopefully, by the end of the term you will be able to look back over the journal and see how your understanding evolved.

In-Class Work

During class each day we will be doing a variety of activities. Many of these will include something being handed in. For the most part, these in-class assignments will only require a simple write-up, nothing fancy. We mainly just want to see what you came up with in the exercises. Grading will be liberal on these assignment (see rubric page once again). There will be 23 class days, so we will drop your lowest 3 days' scores.

Observing exercises

You will receive a term-long observing exercise at the beginning of the term. In this exercise, you will observe the Sun or Moon over the course of the term in order to answer one or more questions about their behaviors. You will chose the question(s) and how you will answer them. Aditya and I will be happy to help you along in this, but to a large degree this is your chance to do your own scientific investigation. This exercise will be 7% of your final grade.

The remaining 3% of your observing grade will come from doing a night lab. I'll hand out telescope observing and lunar observing exercises before the first night session. You must attend at least one night session and complete one activity. (Neither is really very hard.) You may complete an extra activity — not one of the two I've already mentioned — for 2% extra credit. The other 3 night activities can be found at The Sommers-Bausch Observatory Site.

Final Exam

There will be a final exam given on 3 July 2003. The exam will be comprehensive, and will look a lot like the weekly quizzes (but longer).

Your Final Grade

Barring total miscalibration on my part (i.e. — making the assignments way too easy or way too hard), your final grade will be computed as follows:

Range	Grade
92-100	A
90-92	A-
88-90	B+
82-88	B
80-88	B-
78-80	C+
72-78	C
70-72	C-
68-70	D+
62-68	D
60-62	D-
0-60	F

Students with Disabilities

Any student needing accommodations for disabilities should see me as soon as possible. I will try to make any accommodations that I can, as needed. You will need to provide documentation from Disability Services of your needs so that I can best accommodate them.

Other Stuff:

Cheating and Plagiarism

I'm just going to be blunt on this one: I take a very dim view of cheating, and I'll deal with any cases accordingly. Be aware that many cases of cheating go unpunished not because the faculty don't notice but rather because they don't want to deal with it. Believe it or not, we catch a lot of it. If we catch you in this class, we'll deal with the case harshly. (Expect a 0 on the assignment in the very least.)

Why do I care? There are several reasons. One is that cheating in unfair to your classmates who work hard for their grades. It also degrades the value of your degrees if employers become aware of wide-spread cheating. (And, yes, they have.) It also isn't fair to you. You, or someone else, are paying some serious money to learn at CU. (That piece of paper called your degree only gets you so far and for so long. Eventually, you'll need these skills.) Cheating is a waste of that money.

I also want to clarify a somewhat murky point: while I encourage you to work in small groups on homework and other assignments, if it isn't a group activity, then you have to turn your own write-up in to us. You need to use your own words and your own explanations. I suggest that you sketch out the solutions with your partners, but hold off a few hours (or even a day) before writing up your homework. Besides making sure that you use your own words, this has the side benefit of letting you catch silly mistakes.

A final form of cheating we'll be on the look-out for: data falsification. It is sometimes very tempting to alter your data to match what you think you should see. But part of good science is bad data. Sometimes it just means that our methods were not as good as we had hoped. In this case, we can look for ways to improve. Other times, the apparently bad data are really good data that we just don't understand. Many times in the past few hundred years, people have overlooked what they thought was bad data when, in fact, they were actually looking at something new and interesting. On the other hand, there have been several notable cases of scientists fudging their data. One of the hallmarks of science is that eventually, these things get noticed and figured out. In many cases, scientists have lost their careers when they were caught. So don't be afraid of bad data. If are really convinced that it's wrong, you are encouraged to say so and to speculate what might have gone wrong.

Expectations of the Student

As students in this class, I expect the following of you:

• Show up to class on time, ready to go. Don't plan to leave early. (If you need to arrive late or leave early, please check in with Aditya or I so that we can help you on what you'll miss.)
• Bring necessary materials with you: your book, note-paper, scratch-paper (for in-class activities), writing implements (pens, pencils, clay tablet and stylus, whatever works for you) and a calculator. At various times I may request that other materials be brought for the next class. (For instance, we might need stop-watches some days.)

• Be respectful of your fellow students (let them speak in turn, without ridicule or derision). We'll be doing a lot of discussing in this class. That requires that everyone listen to everyone else politely.
• Do the reading before each class. I've tried to break the readings down into bite-sized pieces. Keep up, because if you start to fall behind, it'll overwhelm you.
• Turn in your assignments on time. Falling behind usually leads to further lagging. It also makes it difficult to grade your work fairly.

Expectations of Me

In return, you can (nay, should) expect me to:

• Start on time and end on time. Your time is valuable, and I'll respect that.
• Come prepared to teach. I'll do the readings before class, too. I'll come ready to go each day.
• Treat you with respect. You're all adults and deserve to be treated as such.
• Do my best to help you learn the material and to accommodate any difficulties that might crop up. You are strongly encouraged to make use of my office hours, either scheduled or by appointment, any time you need assistance.
• Grade and return things promptly. I expect you to turn stuff in on time, and you should expect prompt feedback from Aditya and I in return.
• Ensure that the work-load is reasonable and that the assignments are workable. I expect you to put in a fair amount of work in this class, but you should expect me to ensure that your efforts aren't a waste of time.

Schedule