Autumn Quarter 2007 Course Syllabus

General Information

Lectures:

MTWRF, 2:30-3:18pm

1000 McPherson Laboratory (MP1000)

Section Number: 21688-1

Professor: Richard Pogge

Office: 4037 McPherson Lab, 292-0274

Office Hours: Tue, Wed, & Thur 11:00-12:30, or by appointment

E-Mail: pogge.1@osu.edu

TA: TBA

Office:

Office Hours: TBD

E-Mail:

Course Web Page:

www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/index.html

Recommended Textbook:

21st Century Astronomy 2nd Edition, by Jeff Hester, et al. (W.W. Norton & Company)

Note that this book is Recommended but not required.

If you are not planning on taking Astronomy 162, consider buying The Solar System by the same authors, which is just the first half of the full textbook repackaged. It will save you money.

If you are planing on taking Astronomy 162, I recommend buying the full textbook, as just buying the first and second halves as separate books will cost much more than the full edition.

Required Clicker:

For this section we will be using clickers (aka "personal response systems") to ask questions in class and grade them in real time. OSU has adopted the clicker made by Turning Technologies, LLC. These clickers are available at the campus bookstore (used will work fine). Note that no other clicker technology will work.

Course Description

Astronomy 161 is an introduction to modern astronomy, with an emphasis on the solar system. We will begin with an exploration of the historical development of astronomy to trace the path by which we have come to our present understanding of the Universe, building up along the way the basic toolkit of physical concepts that we will need for our later discussions. The second half of the course will be devoted to an overview of modern solar system astronomy, with particular attention paid to the constituents of the solar system, comparative planetology (structure, surfaces, & atmospheres) and the history and evolution of the solar system.

Homework Assignments

Collectively the homework will count for 15% of your grade, equivalent to one in-class quiz. These are not just practice quizzes, but instead are an opportunity to ask somewhat more challenging questions than I can on the multiple-choice quizzes. They are designed get you thinking about the course topics in an active way. I strongly encourage you to form study groups to discuss the questions, though you must decide on the final answers yourself (beware the perils of group-think!).

Late Homework Policy

No late homework will be accepted. All assignments must be submitted in class on the due date. Exceptions will only be made for legitimate, documented emergencies.

In-Class Quizzes

In-Class Quiz 1: Friday, October 6

In-Class Quiz 2: Friday, October 19

In-Class Quiz 3: Friday, November 2

In-Class Quiz 4: Friday, November 16

The quizzes will be held at the normal class time, 2:30-3:18pm, and you will have the entire class time to take it. Bring only a #2 pencil with you: no notes, books, scrap paper or any other items will be allowed.

All of the in-class quizzes and the final exam will be closed-book, closed-notes multiple-choice tests. These computer-generated tests provide each student with a unique test (you are asked the same questions and answers as everyone else, but the order of questions and answers is randomized).

The in-class quizzes will cover the material in the lectures and readings since the previous quiz, whereas the final exam will be comprehensive, covering the entire quarter. Each consists of 50 multiple-choice questions. The general emphasis is on the important core facts covered, plus some questions that require putting ideas together and drawing correct conclusions. I do not expect you to know multi-digit numbers, historical dates, etc. I will also ask a small number of quantitative questions, but the constraints of the multiple-choice format restrict the kinds of such questions I can ask on a 50-question test. As such, I usually defer more complicated quantitative questions to the homework where we have more scope to ask such problems.

Makeup Policy

Makeup in-class quizzes are only offered by advance arrangement with the professor. Exceptions will be made for legitimate, documentable emergencies which require no advance notice. If you will be away on an official University-sponsored activity (e.g., sports teams, band, etc.), please provide a letter from your coach, director, etc. in advance of the quiz. In-class quizzes must be made up before Wednesday after the quiz that you missed, otherwise that quiz becomes the one that I will drop in computing your final grade.

Final Exam

The Final Exam for this course is scheduled for Thursday, December 6 from 11:30am-1:18pm in 1000 McPherson Lab. Attendance at the Final Exam is mandatory.

The final will be comprehensive, covering all lectures and assigned readings, and of the same format as the in-class quizzes, only longer. It is worth 40% of your final course grade.

Persons who miss the final exam will be given an incomplete (I) with an alternative grade equal to getting a zero on the final, and have to make it up during Winter Quarter 2008 to avoid the alternative grade (which at 40% of the total course grade, will be guaranteed to be much lower than you will like).

In keeping with official University policy, early finals will not be available for those persons who wish to depart early for the Holiday Break. Please plan ahead and make your travel plans accordingly, as I will make no exceptions.

Grading Policy

• The 5 homework assignments will collectively account for 15% of your grade, equivalent to 1 in-class quiz.
• I will drop the lowest score of the 4 in-class quizzes, and use the scores on the 3 remaining quizzes to compute your grade. Together, these in-class quizzes count for 45% of your grade.
• The final exam will be cumulative, covering all material from the class. It accounts for 40% of your grade, and must be taken by all students.
• All grading, homework and exams, is done on a standard C+ curve.

Lectures & Readings

The daily lectures are your primary resource for this course. Daily attendance is strongly encouraged.

Next in importance to you are the daily lecture notes available on the web. While you will very likely find these notes to be useful aids for studying and following along in lecture, they are not substitutes for regular attendance. Most students find that the best strategy is to print out the notes, bring them with to class, and then add their own notes in the margins. Remember, these are only outlines of what I cover each day in class, not comprehensive transcripts.

The third component of lectures are the questions I will occasionally ask during class that you will respond to using the clickers that you need to bring to class everyday. I will be using clickers as a way to make the class more interactive by asking questions and giving immediate feedback, a way of breaking out of the traditionally passive "professor talks and students listen" mode that prevails in such large classes. The clicker data also gives me a way to take regular attendance efficiently, so I can give proper credit to those who attend regularly and participate in class.

Technology can be a blessing or a curse depending on how you use it. I have found that by putting my notes online, it has helped many students pay closer attention to lectures without having to sweat writing everything down, and it provides a useful study guide. The dark side of this useful technology is that many students fall into the habit of blowing off class and just reading the web notes before the quizzes or final. This is a seductively easy but dangerous path to follow through a content-rich course like this. It is akin to reading the script of a movie instead of watching it for yourself: while you will get all of the words, the important nuances, visuals, and connections between ideas will be lost. Astronomy is a very visual science, working with often striking images, and you'll get none of this from the notes because many of the images are protected by copyright and cannot be posted with my webnotes.

In general, students who do not attend class regularly score one whole grade below those who attend class (i.e., a D instead of a C). I will be using data from the daily clicker questions to assess attendance.

Students with Disabilities

Academic Misconduct

Classroom Etiquette

Use of cell phones and pagers is prohibited.

This includes using cell phones for instant messaging, email, web, pictures, etc. When in class, all cell phones and pagers must be turned off (do not simply put them into stand-by "silent ring" modes).

Use of Wireless Laptops or other networked devices is prohibited.

Surfing the web, instant messaging, reading email or typing on a keyboard during class is extremely distracting to those around you. When in class, all laptop computers and other networked devices (especially devices like PDAs and Blackberries that can be used for 2-way communications, email, IM, etc.) must be turned off and put away. Exceptions will be made for assistive technologies for the vision- or hearing-impaired in consultation with the professor.

Please do not start packing up until class is completely over.

Nothing is more rude or distracting than the noise of notebooks closing and jackets and backpacks rustling while the professor is trying to finish up. I'll be very clear when we're done, and work very hard to stay on time, so please wait until I get to the end.

If you come late or have to leave early, please sit near the back of the room on the GROUND FLOOR.

This will make your late arrival or early departure less disruptive for your fellow students.

The balcony of MP1000 is OFF LIMITS.

McPherson 1000 is a larger room than we need, and so I ask that you not sit in the upstairs balcony. This makes it easier for the clickers to work, and I have to strain my voice less to be heard. I have also found that people who talk in the balcony can be heard down in front because of the odd acoustics of this room

GEC Goals and Objectives

• Understanding the basic principles and central facts of astrophysics, and their relation to other ideas in the physical and biological sciences.

• Understanding how we discovered the important principles and facts of astrophysics, thus understanding key events in the history of science both as events in human history and as case studies in the methods of science.

• Investigating the relationship between science and technology,

• Understanding the social and philosophical implications of major scientific discoveries.

In Astronomy 161, the specific learning objectives to achieve these course goals are:

• To investigate the basic facts, principles, theories, and methods of modern science as practiced in astrophysics.

• To learn the basic observable phenomena of astronomy, and how these have had both practical applications (time keeping and calendars), and played a key role in advancing our understanding of the Universe.

• To learn important events in the history of astronomy, particularly the development of our understanding of the nature of the Solar System and the discovery of the physical laws that govern its motions, formation history, and evolution.

• To explain the role of modern technology in the investigation of astrophysical phenomena, and the crucial role played by technological advances in extending our knowledge of the Universe.

• To explore how discoveries in astrophysics have implications for how we have come to view our place in the Universe, and by comparing the Earth to other planets in our Solar System provide a physical framework for understanding the possible impacts of our activities on the Earth.