SPECIAL NOTICE: If you have already taken AST 301 or 302, you cannot get credit for this course. You should change your enrollment to an astronomy course numbered 309 or higher.
| INSTRUCTOR: | Dr. Bob Robbins (office: RLM 13.136; phone: 471-7312) |
| My office hours will be just before and after class outside WEL 3.502, TTh from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in my office, and by appointment. | |
| TEACHING ASSISTANT: | Roger Stanley (TBA) |
I. REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS AND MATERIALS:
Please note the overhead projector: used books are more expensive than new ones!
II. ORGANIZATION AND GRADING OF THIS COURSE
Sixty percent of the course grade will come from half-hour quizzes given approximately every three weeks during the semester. Five quizzes will be given, and the lowest score will be dropped. This means each of the four remaining quizzes counts 15 points, totalling 60 on a scale of 100. There will be a help and review session before each quiz. There will be no final exam.
Dropping a quiz should be sufficient to allow for normal (occasional) sickness, bad days, and other problems and obviate the need for make-up quizzes. Unusual circumstances such as severe medical problems will be considered on an individual basis. Bring such matters to my attention as soon as you notice them developing. By the end of the semester, it is generally too late to do anything about it.
The other 40% of your grade will be earned by the completion of a set of observational activities in astronomy, discussed in more detail below.
III. THE OBSERVATIONAL ACTIVITIES
The Activities Manual and Equipment Kit that accompany the main text are filled with materials to help you carry out a sequence of observational activities that involve your active participation in "learning-by-doing." You will do some of these in this class, some from the 14th level roof of RLM, and some at home. I will give you information on which ones to do and when. To make it easier for you to carry out the activities and to make it easier for us to grade them, the Manual has tear-out answer sheets for you to record your observations and conclusions on. We will be with you on the roof to help until you are thoroughly familiar with what you are doing, so don't imagine yourself as being lonely and abandoned on the roof. Since you can consult with us continually on the progress of your observational activities, there should be no obstacle to getting a good grade on them. They tend to be pass-fail activities; if you put in the effort, you end up with a good result.
The required activities will involve making observations of celestial phenomena and drawing conclusions from the measurements you take and having an opportunity to discover many many things for yourself.
The 14th level roof of RLM is a secure observing location, but unfortunately it is located in the middle of the city and campus lights, so it is not ideal, but it does have a good clear horizon and you don't want 3000 stars swimming around when you are just a beginner. It will be necessary for you to stay after class on at least a couple of nights early in the semester for some of these activities. If you cannot do this (or just fail to come), it will be harder for you, because we won't be there to assist you.
Depending upon what is being observed, the specific hours of observation will of course have to vary somewhat. For example, some projects deal with night-time observations of the stars and planets, while Moon observations can be both night and day. Solar observations are clearly daytime observations. For some of them, we will use equipment in our astronomy lab room RLM 13.132. Scheduling of the activities will be announced at every class and also may of course be affected by the weather. If you miss class, get those schedules from someone. I will also post them outside my office, RLM 13.136. The activities are going to be more concentrated at the beginning of the semester, to get observations started as soon as possible, so that long-term activities have more of a chance to show changes. There will be fewer reading assignments at this time.
Note that the observational activities are the "homework"
in this class. There will be no mathematical problem sets.
Procedures for Handing In Work; Late Work; Make-Up Work
An activity will normally be handed in at the start of class time on the day it is due. Pages should be stapled together, and you should print your name on each page you hand in. In fact, a wise technique is to photocopy your work as protection against loss (handing in the original, please).
If you are unable to hand in an activity at class time (e.g., you forgot to bring it to class), you can hand it in anytime on that day by putting it into the mailbox slot designated for our class just outside the door to RLM 13.112, our lab room.
From the time up until the activity is handed back -- graded -- in class, you can still hand in the activity and it will be graded normally, in the sense that we will not take off points. However, it will be entered in the grade book with a "lateness" mark attached to it. Lateness counts as anti-extra credit; if you end up sitting on the border line between two grades, a lateness mark will give you the lower of the two grades. Note that an additional problem with doing the activities work late is that after the due date has passed, you may not be able to receive the same level of assistance while you work and have to do it more on your own.
After an activity is graded and passed back in class, you cannot receive any credit for doing it. You can make up one missed activity by doing another (different) activity to replace it. More information on the make-up activity will be given out later. But note that the makeup activity is usually more work than the original activity.
Deadlines and Drops: Wednesday, September 24 is the last day to drop freely. After this date, University regulations state that you must be working at a C rate in the class to receive a grade of Q (dropped, passing). Up until October 22, you may change between letter-grade and pass-fail status. (Note, however, that pass-fail registration will not satisfy your science requirement.) To drop after October 22 is even more difficult, since you must also convince the dean of students of your college that you have some "urgent and substantiated nonacademic reason" justifying the drop at such a late date. If you are doing poorly in the class, do take effective action by these deadline days. You invite all sorts of trouble from the administration when you procrastinate past one of them.
TENTATIVE QUIZ DATES and the reading they cover:
| Quiz (1) September 18 | Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5 |
| Quiz (2) October 14 | Chapters 6, 7, 8 (skip 144-151), 9, 10 (skip pp. 218-222) |
| Quiz (3) November 4 | Chapters 11, 12, 13, 14 (skip from last paragraph of pg. 258 to pg. 270) |
| Quiz (4) November 25 | Chapters 15 (skip Inquires 15-3 and 15-4 and the two paragraphs above them.), 16, 17 (skip CNO cycle, pg. 344 and pp. 359-360.), 18, 19 |
| Quiz (5) December 5 | Chapters 20 (skip pp. 375-378), 21, 22, 23 |