SYLLABUS FOR WCC ASTR&100 Introduction to Astronomy Fall 2010

Required Text: "Pathways to Astronomy" by Stephen Schneider and Thomas Arny
Any edition will work provided you are aware that some pages have changes.  Almost any astronomy textbook will work if you read the appropriate chapters for the week's topics.

Instructor:  Brad Snowder
Office: WCC Kul-212; WWU CF-357
Office Hours:  By appointment only
email: brad.snowder-at-wwu.edu

Astronomy 100 Start Page:  http://snowder.com/a100

Students must have reliable access to the Internet and be able to print out material. 

CLASS SCHEDULE - all sections meet in Kulshan Building room 205.

COURSE #	SECTION	DAYS	START	END	PLANETARIUM SHOWS
1575	AL1	MWF	9:30 AM	11:00 AM	To Be Announced
1576	AL2	MWF	12:00 PM	1:20 PM

STUDY SCHEDULE

WEEK	TEXTBOOK UNITS	SUBJECT MATERIAL
Week 1	5, 6, 8	How Science Works, Night Sky, Sun & Moon Motion
Week 2	11, 12, 21, 22, 29	History, Planet Motion, Gravity, Light, Telescopes
Week 3	49 to 51	Our Sun, Star Properties
Week 4	55, 58 to 63	Formation & Structure of Stars
Week 5	64 to 66	Stellar Evolution, Death, Remnants
Week 6	70 to 73	Milky Way & Other Normal Galaxies
Week 7	76 to 82	Active Galaxies, Cosmology, Big Bang
Week 8	33, 41, 45 to 48	Formation of Our Solar System, Debris
Week 9	35 to 40, 43, 44, 83, 84	Planets, Life in the Universe

Note that the start date for each week is a Monday, regardless of holidays or possible class cancellations.  Monday is also the day of each week on which assignments are due from the previous week.

I will not post the final exam to the website. It will be handed out in class. There will be about one week allowed to work on the final. Class time during the last week will be for groups to work on the final and ask questions (of clarification).

Course elements that determine the final grade include weekly discussion questions, weekly quizzes, the final exam, extra credit, and attendance of a planetarium show. The following percentages are what I will use to compute final grades.

1. Weekly discussion questions: a few points each
2. Weekly quizzes: 10 quizes at 20 points each
3. Final Exam: 100 points
4. Attend Planetarium Show: +10% Extra Credit to all regular assignments and quizzes
5. Other Extra Credit: see below

You have an excellent textbook, with very rare occurrences of confusing presentations. Your primary learning source will be your text, and I expect you to read material assigned prior to class. We will use class time to summarize the most important points, answer questions about the assigned reading, and do in-class work that illustrates the main concepts. In other words, you will be responsible for your learning, with modest help from traditional lecture presentation. I will also use class time to present information not included in your book, such as recent information in astronomy, and to amuse you with anecdotes from my own experiences.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
I will post weekly discussion question sets at the website. A question will typically require a response of a moderate-length paragraph, and my intent is that you will have read and understood the assigned text material in order to answer these critical thinking kinds of questions. Each Friday afternoon, I will post my responses to these questions at the website, and the student will do a self-assessment by comparing student responses with mine.  These discussion questions and self-assessments will be due the first day of the following unit.  If you turn in your discussion questions without having performed a self-assessment, you will receive no credit. Your self-assessment is a number, a point total (e.g. 2, or 3). Place it at the top of the first page of your responses. The total possible will be given in my responses.

WEEKLY QUIZZES
Each weekly quiz will generally consist of 20 multiple choice questions that will test your understanding of the subject material covered during that unit. I will post the quizzes on the website. Quizzes are due on the first day of the following week, along with the discussion question self-assessment. All quizzes will be take-home exams.

OPTIONAL EXTRA CREDIT WORK
For each week of study, you can earn up to 20% extra credit on the WEEKLY QUIZ (i.e., 4 points out of 20) score by reviewing and summarizing an article in astronomy that is relevant to the unit’s subject matter, BUT NOT INCLUDED IN THE TEXTBOOK. For example, you may use articles from Astronomy Magazine, Sky & Telescope Magazine, or other Internet sources. Here is a list of some Internet bookmarks.  For magazine articles relevant to various units of the course, see this multi-page handout. There are many articles on the WWU Planetarium website.

A successful extra credit report must meet the following criteria:

1. It must be related to the subject matter for the study week;
2. The scope of the article must go beyond what appears in your textbook;
3. You must list references (from scientific articles only), and include a hard copy of the first page web articles (and the URL);
4. You must submit the report on the regular assessment due date for the study week.

OTHER OPTIONS FOR EXTRA CREDIT

1. I have equipment that allows interested students to do advanced observing projects including astrophotography.   Please see your instructor if you want to pursue this option.
2. You can earn lots of extra credit by writing an academic paper in astronomy. This is an ideal way to learn to write a quality research paper and dig into an area of interest in astronomy.  Please see your instructor to negotiate extra credit terms for this option.

WEEKLY PROCEDURE

1. On the start date for a week (always a Monday), go to the start page for this class: http://snowder.com/a100
   
2. Scroll down the page to the links to the assignments, and click on the appropriate weekly link.
3. You will now be on the assignments page for a week:  at a minimum, print out a copy of the discussion questions and a copy of the weekly quiz.  Also note the reading assignment.  There is generally supplemental reading you may also want to print - such as instructor notes and other information.
4. Read the material, answer the discussion questions, and work on the quiz. If you have questions about the assignments, ask about them in class
5. On Friday/Saturday/Sunday, go back to the assignments page for the week, locate the link to my discussion question responses, compare your responses with mine, and perform your self-assessment according to the directions on my responses page.
6. On the start date for the next week, turn in your self-assessed discussion questions and the weekly quiz.
7. Before the start date of a week, I highly recommend you at least skim the reading material for that week.

FINAL EXAMINATION
The take-home final exam will consist of multiple choice questions designed to test your ability to synthesize information from the course. The final will also test your research, problem solving, and critical thinking abilities.  The history for this class is that, if you do your own work and really understand the prior course content, the final exam will be challenging but straight-forward. Failure to keep up with and do the assigned weekly work will almost certainly result in a disastrous final exam. Questions on the final exam will cover material in the text, material discussed in class and at the class website, material covered in weekly assignments, and material in articles referenced on the final exam itself.  You should budget about 15 hours during the last week of class for completing the final.

ATTEND A PLANETARIUM SHOW
Planetarium shows introduce you to the night sky in a warm, dry environment with a tour guide - Brad Snowder of WWU's planetarium facility.   Visit the Planetarium Website for instructions on how/where to park and finding the planetarium.  You need to attend one of the shows to get the full +10% credit.  Other shows are scheduled besides the ones for this class, so if you're unable to attend on our schedule contact the instructor to possibly arrange to attend a different show. Cost is $3 and you pay the Whatcom Community College cashier in the LDC building. Your receipt is your ticket to extra credit.

POLICY ON MISSED OR LATE WORK
My expectation is that you will attend class regularly (actually and/or virtually) and keep up with assignments.  If you know you cannot keep up with class work or if you feel you need some other special consideration, please notify me as soon as possible to work out individual arrangements.

PRE-REQUISITES - NONE
Some background in physics may be helpful, but the course will include any necessary physics material. I will keep the course weighted toward the conceptual rather than the quantitative so that those of you who with less math skills can still understand and appreciate the course material.

COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES
I have two general goals for Introduction to Astronomy. First, I hope students will understand their place in the universe - where they are, what they are, and how astronomers think that happened. Second, I'd like students to understand the scientific process by which astronomers arrived at the modern understanding of the universe, including outstanding unresolved issues. Students who successfully complete the course should also be able to understand articles in general astronomy and science periodicals (which are written for amateur astronomers) and news articles relating to recent findings in astronomy. The following is a list of general course learning objectives. Specific objectives will accompany each weekly session, and your textbook lists these at the beginning of each chapter. Completing this course will enable you to:

1. Describe where you are in the Universe, and the astronomical processes that enabled you to be here.
2. Relate the early history of astronomy and physics, and show how this exemplifies how science works today.
3. Compare the currently accepted theory of formation of the Sun and planets (and other stars) with the observed features of our solar system as well as planets known to be associated with stars outside our solar system.
4. Describe the life cycle of stars from birth to death and beyond.
5. Describe the different types and features of galaxies - very large collections of stars - that astronomers observe in the universe.
6. Relate how the Big Bang theory explains the observed features of our universe, and describe the unresolved issues.
7. Describe the considerations that go into trying to determine the possibility of other intelligent, technological life in our galaxy or the universe.

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUCCESS

1. Review the assigned text prior to the start of the week.
2. Come to class with your questions written down, and ask them.
3. Do the discussion questions with care. For many of the questions, you will probably not be able to find answers in a book and these will require critical thinking and some research.  This is excellent practice for the final exam.
4. Before taking the weekly quiz, read the text, focussing on difficult concepts.
5. During your discussion question self-assessment, note and raise any remaining questions on anything that is unclear to you.
6. Don’t hurry through the weekly multiple-choice quizzes. Make one pass, answering questions that are easier for you. Then make a second pass, thinking through each of the multiple choice possibilities. The content in this course is cumulative, and it will be very difficult to understand the material in week 6 without a good grip on weeks 1-5.
7. Keep all your discussion question sets, weekly quizzes, and information hand-outs in a well-organized folder. This will be extremely useful when you are working on the final exam.
8. This is a science class, so continue to ask yourself throughout the course what evidence exists in support of various theories, what data are yet to be taken, and what are the weak aspects of any theory. Try your best to distinguish between what astronomers MEASURE versus their interpretations that show up ultimately as THEORY. Theories are the ultimate goal in any science, and their strength depends on a successful comparison with the collective data-base of confirmed measurements.
9. Introduction to Astronomy is a course about the formation and evolution of the Universe in the context of the Big-Bang theory of the beginning of the Universe some 14 billion years ago. We will discuss concepts from a scientific perspective – which means skeptically and using well-accepted scientific laws and processes.
10. Last, and perhaps most important of all, I encourage you to work in groups with others in the class on all assignments, including the final exam.  I am convinced that maximum learning happens in this cooperative environment.