Be sure to follow the instructions below and you will get more out of the course.

From Gary Larson. See http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~hampel/larson/larson.html

How to ace this course:

1. Come to class The lectures will help you master the material. In addition, we will occasionally have you do in-class exercises, and you will not get credit for them if you do not come and do them.

2. Take notes: you can print out a note outline for the four course sections from the syllabus. Bring it to class and fill in as much of the outline there as you can - fill in the rest from the notes while you study.

3. Study the lecture notes. They include sets of questions that you should be able to answer - if you select the wrong answer, you will be linked back to the part of the notes you should study.

4. Review your written notes, any breakout exercises, and the questions within the lecture notes to help prepare for exams.

5. Relax and have a good time. Astronomy is interesting, and the course will give you a chance to sample it and enjoy it! In fact, the notes have a lot of additional material we hope you will sample.

Rules

1. Do the course work independently, and to the best of your ability - that way you will learn more.

2. You can work with other students when you have explicit permission from the instructor; of course, studying with them is fine and will help you learn the material as well as make new friends.

3. Exams will be assigned seating. You must bring picture ID or you will not be allowed to turn in your exam. Your backpack/other storage device must be left in the front of the room during the exam, and all cell phones and similar electronic devices must be off. Come on time; no one will be admitted to take an exam after the first person has finished and left the lecture hall.

4. We do not give makeup exams, except for extraordinary reasons. At the time of the final, however, we will let you take an additional (second) exam on material similar to that covered in any one of the previous three exams. If you have missed one of those exams, this system gives you an opportunity to recover. It also allows you to recover if you just did a bad job on one of them; we will give you the higher of the two grades.

5. Assignments not turned in on time will not receive credit.

Grading

1. There are three in-class exams plus a final. The in-class exams are mostly on the material since the last exam, with a few questions from the rest of the course. Each will have 50 questions and be worth 100 points. The final is half on material since the last exam and half on the rest of the course. It will have 100 questions and be worth 200 points. All exams are on a computerized multiple-choice form Bring a soft pencil to fill in the form.

2. There are three breakout sessions - on spectroscopy, the output of the sun, and radiation. You will complete a report on each of these sessions and turn it in. Each report is worth 50 points.

3. There will be a library/information resources research paper, worth 100 points

4. Class attendance will be checked through in-class activities. It is worth 100 points.

5. The total possible points for the course is therefore 850. We grade on a strict scale of 90 - 100% is A, 80 - 90% is B, 70 - 80% is C, 60 - 70% is D, and less than 60% is failing.

More Things To Do

We hope the course will increase your interest in astronomy, and if it does you are lucky because you are in the middle of one of the world's greatest astronomy research centers. There is lots that you can do to learn more:

Flandrau Science Center (corner Cherry and the campus mall): http://www.flandrau.org/

Kitt Peak National Observatory (take a picnic): http://www.noao.edu/outreach/kpoutreach.html

Sky viewing from Kitt Peak (16 inch telescope, surrounded by other astronomers): http://www.noao.edu/outreach/nop/

Fred L. Whipple Observatory (tours, an all day adventure): http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/flwo/visitcenter.html

Steward Observatory Mirror Lab (under football stadium): http://mirrorlab.as.arizona.edu/MISC.php?navi=tours

Steward Observatory Public Evenings (popular lectures by eminent astronomers): http://viking.as.arizona.edu/~taf/pubeve/pub_lect.html

Beautiful dark skies: get out of town any clear night when the moon is not up!

Or....you could read a book. Ask us for recommendations.

The fine print:

These notes (© G. Rieke) and instructions are for two sections of Natural Sciences 102, taught by Professors Marcia and George Rieke. "Lecture 7" meets MWF 11:00 - 11:50, in the large lecture hall in the astronomy building, room N210. "Lecture 8" meets MWF 12:00 - 12:50, in the same place. If you are assigned to Lecture 7, than your "official" professor is George Rieke, and if you are in Lecture 8, Marcia Rieke is the "official" professor. Room N210 is entered directly from the courtyard to the southeast of the old telescope dome. The two classes will be team-taught and will cover the same material, and thus will follow closely the same schedule and have the same general policies and rules.

When you finish this course, we want you to

• have a deeper appreciation of how we got here, from the origin of the Universe through the birth of stars and planets and the formation of life, combining astronomy, planetary science, and some physics and biology in a unified form
• have concrete examples of how science works (and doesn't work)
• understand the connections between science and literature, art, philosophy, and other fields
• have enhanced practical skills such as writing, quantitative reasoning, and calculations.

NatSci 102 is a 3-unit tier one general education course in the physical sciences. The goals for these courses are stated by the University-wide General Education Commitee (see http://w3.arizona.edu/~uge/gened/guidlnst1d.htm), and our aims listed above are consistent with them. 

The course is for non-science majors and has as prerequisites only the entrance requirements to the university, including 4 units of high school mathematics and 3 units of high school science. It assumes no prior knowledge of astronomy or other sciences.

Participation: Attendance is expected at all classes You are responsible for information given out in class, including schedule changes and homework assignments. Although with the lecture notes and text available to you, you may be tempted to skip class we strongly recommend that you not do that. Discussing things in lecture, with the opportunity to ask questions and hear the answers to questions asked by others, will help you remember the material. Attendance will not be taken explicitly in the class, but occasionally we will have an in-class activity that will result in your answering questions and turning them in. We will not grade these items, but will make a note of who turned them in as a record of attendance.

It is easy to feel intimidated about participation in a large lecture class. However, one of the general lessons from science is that there is no such thing as a dumb question! If you are puzzled about something, ask -- it is likely that others in the class are also puzzled. If we feel the question is too complex to answer during the lecture (or we are not sure of the correct answer), we will suggest you see us about it after class. That way, we can take time to explain it more thoroughly (or search out an answer if we don't know one!).

Lab/Discussion: On three occasions indicated in the syllabus, we will have a mini-lecture in the usual lecture hall (N210), and then break out into three sections to carry out hand-on activities. These activities will include follow-up exercises for things like calculations based on measurements made in the session itself. We will also ask you to write a short description of the activity and its context. This material will be due one week after the activities have occurred.

Information Literacy: In the good old days, almost all information for a course like this one was obtainable in a library. The librarians did the work of not buying books that were full of errors so you could at some level count on getting reliable data. Now, the web makes it much easier to get information, both good and bad. To help you gain skill in using this flood of data, you will write a paper specifically designed to test your skills at sorting through multiple sources of information. If possible, we will arrange sessions with the library to help you learn how to find reliable information. If such sessions are arranged, we will have attendance taken and count it in scoring your paper; otherwise, we will prepare a paper topic that can be used in a way similar to the library sessions. 

Academic Policies: All students are expected to be aware of and follow the university Code of Academic Integrity, http://catalog.arizona.edu/policies/974/acacode.htm.   Some exerpts are: "The guiding principle of academic integrity is that a student's submitted work must be the student's own... Conduct prohibited by the Code consists of all forms of academic dishonesty, including, but not limited to: cheating, fabrication, facilitating academic dishonesty, and plagiarism ..... , modifying any academic work for the purpose of obtaining additional credit after such work has been submitted to the supervising faculty member unless the supervising faculty member approves such alterations; failure to observe rules of academic integrity established by a faculty member for a particular course. A specific rule of academic work is that all sources used in a paper must be acknowledged with a reference given in sufficient detail that it can easily be found by anyone else to check the context of the information. A corollary of this rule is that any work cited word-for-word for more than 5 words should not only be acknowledged, but the words should be placed in quotation marks. For books, a standard style for a reference is to put the author and year in parentheses where you cite them: (Smith 1997). For material from the web, put the author and url (Smith, http://xxxxxx) . The sources should be listed again in a bibliography at the end of the work, in alphabetical order and with additional information such as the publisher of the book, the page number of any quotation, and additinal authors as appropriate. When you turn in homework or writing assignments, they must be your own work and not the same as work from anyone else. All sources of information you have used must be appropriately acknowledged. You may only work together on such activities if you have permission from us in advance.

Conduct: Please come to class prepared to listen and learn. As a courtesy to us and your fellow students, do not eat, drink, or read newspapers in the lecture hall, and turn your cell phones off. At the typical costs to attend the university, http://financialaid.arizona.edu/cost.htm, you (or someone who loves you) is paying somewhere between $30 (resident) and $50 (nonresident) for EVERY LECTURE in this course. Please make use of this investment yourself, and be careful that you do not compromise the ability of other students to make use of their investments.

Identification and exam rules: For all exams, we require positive identification. You must bring your student ID and it must be shown before we will accept your exam for grading. Also, you must arrive on time. No exams will be handed out after the first person has left the room. No materials may be used in the exams other than a pencil. Backpacks and other similar devices are to be left at the front of the lecture hall to be picked up after the exam has been completed. You may not wear listening devices such as headphones during an exam.

If you need extra help: Please see us after class if you have a disability that needs to be accommodated in the course. Bring the letter of identification from the Disability Resource Center, http://drc.arizona.edu, to help us work out the best way for you to do well in the course.

Grades

We have tried to distribute the grades over a number of small pieces, so having a bad day should not have a large impact on your success. Your grade will be determined as in the following table:

We grade on a strict scale, 90-100% = A, 80 - 90% = B, 70 - 80% = C, 60 - 70% = D, less than 60% is failing. Thus, you are not in competition with other students for a good grade -- all of you can earn A's, and no one would be happier than us if that happened!!