INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONOMY 112

Syllabus[1] for

INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONOMY 112

Fall 2009

Lecturer: Dr. Paul M. Rybski,

Associate Professor, Department of Physics and

Director, Whitewater Observatory

Lectures at Upham Hall, Room 141

Section 03C-LEC (4105) MTWR 9:55-10:45 AM

Laboratories at Upham Hall, Rooms 050, 250 or at the Whitewater Observatory

Section 03-LAB (4107) – M 12:05-2:00 PM

Section 04-LAB (5891) – T 12:30-2:25 PM (Constantinescu assisting)

Office Hours, Upham 163

MWF 3:30-6:00 PM

Or by Appointment

Nighttime Observations at Whitewater Observatory

Four required one-hour sessions, credited as Laboratory time

TR 9:00-11:00 PM, only during clear weather, as determined by Instructor

General Access Computer Lab, Upham Hall 051

MTWRF, as posted on door

Mailing Address: Department of Physics, Upham Hall 163

Office: Upham 163 (T#: 5766); Lab: Upham 163A (T#: 3372)

Whitewater Observatory: (T#: 5731)

Email Address: rybskip@uww.edu

I. Introduction

A. This is a General Studies course; why do you need it?

Over the past several years, the business sections of newspapers and news magazines in the United States have carried many articles about the poor quality of students being turned out by today's high schools and colleges. At the same time these publications have carried articles about corporate downsizing to increase profitability. So today's students face two challenges: (1) not only must they put together an above-average high school academic record to get into a good college or university, then create an even better college or university record to get that all-important first job in their major field; (2) they must also acquire an educational background that prepares them for their second, third, fourth and fifth jobs.

This second challenge may surprise you as it did me when I first read it. But labor statistics gathered since World War II have shown that the average white collar professional will make four to five changes of occupation in their careers. For this reason, when interviewing for entry-level positions, major corporations preferentially select high-quality students with the broadest educational backgrounds over high-quality students with narrow training in their majors. These companies know that by hiring the students with the broader backgrounds, they are increasing the likelihood the students they hire will be able to move more easily to a different assignment when downsizing eliminates jobs.

Louis V. Gerstner Jr., former Chief Executive Officer of IBM, underscored this preference in the March 1996 National Education Summit in Palisades, NY, between top executives of American corporations and state governors, when he said, "It is not in the interest of business leaders to turn public schools [and universities] into vocational schools. We can teach [students] how to be marketing people. We can teach them how to manage balance sheets. What is killing us is having to teach them how to read and to compute and to communicate and to think." (Time Magazine, April 8, 1996, p. 40.) He went on to emphasize that university students should work as hard at learning and improving these essential skills in liberal arts "General Education" courses as they do at mastering soon-to-be-obsolete technical training in their major field courses. Learning to use these essential skills in the widely varying environments presented by "Gen Ed" courses is your best opportunity to practice for meeting the demands of the working world. So you are here to learn how to solve problems, how to communicate and how to work in groups.

Imagine for the next five paragraphs that you have a degree in business with a specialty in project management. You've used a computer in college and at work for everything from correspondence to spreadsheets to project management. You've even used Netscape at college to "surf the net" for webpages relevant to class subjects. You're in your second year of employment with a corporation, government agency or school when you and your division coworkers attend a meeting with your supervisor in which a new, Internet webpage-based advertising scheme is discussed. After the meeting's conclusion, your supervisor takes you aside and says,

"I'm looking for someone who I can put in charge of organizing this effort. They'll need to submit a plan to me by next month which identifies the resources they will require to assemble the webpage and which lays out a plan to complete the page in six months.

"I realize webpages are outside your usual responsibilities and probably your education. But I liked the way you organized and completed your last project, and I think you are the person to bring our webpage to the net, both on time and under budget. We can't afford to hire a consulting firm to do this for us, but we can support supplementary instruction for you and a few people from our information systems division to get this project off the ground. Your visibility in the organization will be boosted considerably if you succeed. Let me know your answer by tomorrow."

You retire to your cubicle to assess the situation. You have half of the qualifications for the project -- project management training -- and you are missing half -- instruction in HTML (hypertext markup language). The closest you've come to webpage design is the one-semester Pascal programming course you had in college. Since designing a webpage is akin to simple computer programming, you understand this course gives you an entry-level perspective on the problem. To make up for the gaps in your knowledge, you see that you need to buy a few good books on webpage design and authoring, budget your at-work and at-home time to learn HTML basics, study the many examples already available on the World Wide Web, make your own webpage so that you can demonstrate capability, then estimate the person-hour and machine resources needed to complete the project. You realize, "Hey, this assignment is no more difficult than the more challenging I encountered in my "General Education" college courses!"

Would you decline this opportunity to improve your institutional visibility, not to mention increased opportunity for promotion and improved pay, just because you haven't had a course in HTML? You know that, if you want to do well in the organization, you had better say "Yes" to the project, then work the 18-hour days necessary to create the project plan by the one-month deadline. For if you say "No", giving as your reason your lack of past training, you will have shown yourself unwilling -- or unable -- to learn new skills relevant to your institution, to bend and adapt as changing needs demand. You will probably be passed over for future projects, making you a prime candidate for downsizing.

What you have just read is fictional, of course. Yet situations like the webpage challenge happen nearly monthly in corporations around the country. Demands in the global workplace are changing at an accelerating pace, and only those companies who can change with the demand have a chance to retain long-term profitability. Clearly, workers who are the most flexible and adaptable will reap the greatest rewards. Those who refuse to meet the changing conditions of the workplace will be left behind. Where can you learn flexibility and adaptability? In General Education college and university courses . . . .

Before reading the above material, my course "Introduction to Astronomy" may have seemed only remotely connected, at best, to the challenges in the world of employment for which you are now preparing yourself. After reading this material, you should recognize that your opportunities for rewarding and continuous employment after college will be realized only in proportion to the efforts you put into liberal arts General Education classes like mine.

Since your future productivity and happiness depends in part on your efforts here, I expect you to take seriously the demands placed on you by this course -- "to read, . . . compute, . . . communicate and . . . think" better than you have in the past -- and to work with your classmates and me to meet them. For the same reason, I place constant demands on myself to organize and present a course that is interesting and of high quality. If you and I work hard this semester, you will add measurably to your future employability.

B. My Promise to You – being Course Goals

Considerable effort has been spent in preparing course materials so that you will enjoy your efforts in this class. Provided you make a conscientious effort to master the course's material, you should expect to leave it with a working acquaintance with the concepts of modern astronomy and a working knowledge of some of the methods, past and present, that astronomers use to enlarge this body of knowledge. In particular, you should be able to read with good comprehension and discuss clearly with your friends the popular articles appearing in daily newspapers, in weekly news magazines and in the science-oriented magazines Sky and Telescope, Astronomy, Discover and Scientific American.

C. Your Promise to Me – being Student Responsibilities

By diligently studying this course's selection of astronomical objects, history and theories, you should leave it with a coherent, broad-brush-stroke picture of what we understand about the Universe today. Astronomy addresses physical systems that are as small as the quark and as large as the entire Universe. Because of their number and variety, all of these systems cannot be discussed to equal depth in a single semester. I hope you will enjoy the topic selections I have made and will work hard during the coming semester both to master the assigned material and to develop a broader, more diverse view of your universe.

D. How You Learn and How this Course will Actively Engage You

Each of you possesses a unique intellectual background and a unique reason for taking this course. Some have little current interest in astronomy and have chosen it hoping it will be the least difficult of the General Studies science courses. Others have a genuine interest and curiosity about "what's up there" but are unsure of the commitment of time and energy they will have to make to learn the material. Then there are those who have a burning desire to learn about all things astronomical and will work tirelessly to master whatever this course makes available. No matter what your motivations, this course is designed with your mastery of its material as its goal.

In addition to different motivations, each of you brings your own learning style to this course. Some of you (55%) learn best by reading material; 35% learn best by listening; and the remaining 10% learn best by building models. Because of this diversity of learning style, different instructional methods will be used to involve you actively in the learning process. However, because your future employers will expect you to function satisfactorily in all of these learning modes, all students will be expected to participate equally in all activities.

Finally, all of you arrive in this course today with a mixture of correct and incorrect ideas about astronomy. Educational research within the past 50 years has shown that my standing in front of you, telling you what are currently accepted ideas about the universe, will do little to change your present ideas. Only when you actively challenge your current conceptions against current knowledge will you begin changing those that are incorrect.

The course delivery structure with which most of you are familiar is the lecture method, since this is the usual means of information delivery in secondary schools and colleges. Some of you have been quite successful at taking lecture courses and are anticipating this as the structure of choice for all your college classes. Unfortunately, research in educational psychology since the 1940's has shown lecturing most successful in imparting the facts of a discipline or the means of solving specific problems, while it is least successful in imparting an ability either to correlate these facts or to solve new problems. Without further study outside of class, students quickly forget material presented in lecture. An ancient Chinese saying applies here: "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand." A more modern saying applies, too: "In lecture, a professor pretends to teach and students pretend to learn."

If attending a lecture and carefully taking notes do not result in true learning, why should I bother lecturing? Most introductory classes use excellent texts. Why not just assign readings and use lecture time for questions, quizzes and tests? First, no text is ideal: every instructor feels the need both to clarify some of the topics presented and to add material where it has been omitted. Some of these clarifications and additions may involve explaining the technical vocabulary of the field, drawing relations between facts that the text itself does not draw and providing a coherent summary of a unit just studied. Secondly, every instructor has a unique perspective that s/he wishes to share with students, a perspective that can only be communicated in lecture or dialogue format. Finally, most students need external pacing to learn a new field. Each of these activities "adds value" to the course and is best done in a lecture format.

Sadly, merely listening to such additional content will not make you its master. You will have to review this material in a variety of ways before you can "make it your own". Everyone must read the book carefully, taking notes as necessary; they must rewrite their class notes and develop questions from their notes to ask the lecturer or their peers; they must look up technical terms. And they must work diligently to understand the relations between discipline-specific concepts, practice solving problems and thoughtfully discuss with their peers this course's concepts from a variety of perspectives -- including, possibly, constructing physical models of abstract concepts. You will not retain what you hear or read unless you approach the learning task in an "active" manner. The active learning behaviors discussed in this paragraph will be added to at the end of this syllabus.

Aiding your study this semester will be the "learning teams" or "study groups" in which some of your in-class and out-of-class work will be completed. Comprised of three or four people each, these teams will assist you in learning the concepts and methods presented in the course. Team members will help each other confront their misunderstandings of astronomy, making their learning experiences more productive and enjoyable than if they had studied alone. Used judiciously, team assistance will help you over rough spots in your learning. Used inappropriately, where you rely too much on team input and not enough on our own effort, team assistance will delay your mastery of this course. More will be said below about "learning team" philosophy.

The extensive syllabus that follows provides detailed information about all aspects of this course. Please read this document at least twice and keep it in a place where you can refer to it easily . If you have any questions about what is written here or about the course in general, please ask these questions during the first few lecture periods or see me individually in Upham 163 during my office hours or by appointment.

E. A Guide to the Confused and Frustrated

Studying a new subject is like learning a foreign language after the age of 12. At the beginning of the course, most concepts will be new. As the course progresses and you acquire new knowledge and problem-solving skills, particularly knowledge that may contradict previously acquired knowledge, you will feel confusion and frustration. The harder you work to acquire this knowledge and these skills, the more confused and frustrated you may become. You may even be tempted to drop the course because it seems ‘too hard’. Should you find yourself in this situation, RELAX: what you are feeling is your brain creating new neural connections that will permit you to remember and use this new knowledge! What you are feeling is a perfectly normal response to successfully acquiring new information and integrating it in with older information. Feeling no confusion and frustration at all during this course is a sure sign either that you already know the material or that you are NOT learning the material.

If you need assistance in studying this course’s material, you may avail yourself of two aids: tutoring by excellent students who previously have taken my course, or assistance from me during my office hours or by appointment or by Email. Tutoring occurs in Upham 168 across from my office on the first floor of Upham. After the second week of classes, a schedule will be posted outside the door of UH 168 that will list the times and days when Astronomy tutoring will be available. You can obtain assistance from me in my office in Upham 163. My office hours for this semester are listed on the first page of this syllabus. Finally, you can write me a question by Email. Provided you send it before 10 PM, I should be able to answer it before class the following morning. Under unusual circumstances, an answer may be delayed for 24 hours after the question is sent. When in doubt, call my office phone and leave a message.

II. Texts and Supplies

A. Universe (Eighth Ed.) by Roger A. Freedman and William J. Kaufmann III (New

York: W. H. Freeman and Co.), 2009, ISBN 0-7167-8584-6.

B. Observing Projects Using “Starry Night Enthusiast’, ISBN 1-4292-0074-X[2].

C. SC1 and SC2 Constellation Charts (Boston: Sky Publishing), 1988.

D. Study Guide for Introduction to Astronomy by Paul M. Rybski (Whitewater: Dept. of

Physics Press), 2009.

E. Supplementary Materials for Introduction to Astronomy , by Paul M. Rybski

(Whitewater: Dept. of Physics Press), 2009.

F. The Sky at Night by Robin Kerrod (New York: New Burlington Books), 2002[3].

G. Flashlight of your choice, equipped with weak batteries or a red filter to give off a dim red

light.

H. E-Book pamphlet to accompany Universe (Eighth Ed.) by Freedman and Kaufmann.

Students can obtain texts A from the textbook rental service of the Bookstore at no cost. Text B, when available, must be purchased from the University Bookstore for $24.50. Text C -- the star charts – must also be purchased at the Bookstore, to a group price of about $2.00. Text F MAY be ordered through the Bookstore and is $34.99. Texts D and E will be distributed to you at no cost in looseleaf form as the course progresses. Supply G – the flashlight – can be any one of your choice, provided it is equipped with weak batteries (yes, the batteries you are always throwing away) or covered with a red filter. Depending on availability, Text H will be available later this semester, either from the instructor or from the Textbook Rental group.

Texts A, D and E are the principal references for this course: you will not be able to pass the course without having thoroughly studied the assigned sections. Text B may be used in conjunction with or in place of in-class laboratories. Text C will be used for nighttime observations and for learning the constellations visible at this time of year. Text F may be used to supplement our study of the constellations at the Observatory because it contains a simple star map, maps of the major constellations for each month of the year and a nicely illustrated guide to astronomy generally. Most importantly, it contains a red-filtered flashlight, for which you will need to purchase two AA batteries (Duracell preferred because they leak least and last longest).

Should you choose not to purchase Text F, a flashlight may be purchased from Wal-Mart. If you prefer to use a red filter instead of weak batteries in order to have a brighter red light, you should glue red cellophane on the front lens of the flashlight. Some flashlights, such as Boy or Girl Scout flashlights, come equipped with several filters that can be installed in place of the clear lens covering the lamp. DO NOT BRING A WHITE FLASHLIGHT EQUIPPED WITH NEW BATTERIES TO THE OBSERVATORY.

Text D is a Study Guide I have prepared to aid you in mastering the material of this course. It consists of a chapter for each course unit and contains review of and elaboration upon material from lectures and the text. Also contained in each Study Guide chapter are Self-test questions and answers. Text E consists of handouts of notes and graphics not included in the Study Guide but which we will use throughout the course for easy reference to astronomical data and concepts. Since quizzes and tests will contain questions directly related to material reviewed in the Study Guide and its supplements, it is essential that you study the Study Guide and supplementary material as well as your lecture notes and the textbook.

Text H, the E-Book pamphlet to accompany this textbook, may be used for some assignments, provided a sufficient number are available. Obviously, no assignments will be made from it until it is available for distribution to the class.

PLEASE NOTE: Texts A, D and E must be brought to each class session; others, on specific request. Text B must be brought to each Laboratory Session. Supply G must ALWAYS be brought to the Observatory.

III. Course Activities and Goals

A. Lectures

Lecture periods will involve you in two different types of activities. The first of these will be conventional lecture/demonstrations given by me (in my role as "sage on the stage") to clarify topics left vague or incomplete by the text, to introduce topics omitted by the text and to answer your questions about facts and relationships left obscure by any part of the course. You are responsible for mastering the content of each lecture, so take good notes! But be forewarned: mastery of the lecture material alone will not allow you to pass this course. You must also study the materials (1) assigned in the text, (2) given to you as printed supplements and (3) sent to you in electronic form to prepare satisfactorily for the scheduled quizzes and tests.

The second type of activity during lecture periods will involve individual or team activities that emphasize your active participation. These will include short activities, demonstrations or presentations and computer-assisted activities. Your quickest mastery of course material will come from this second lecture-period activity. During these times, you will be the "active learner; I will be your "guide on the side".

B. Required and Optional Observational Projects

Since this is a laboratory-based class, there will be conventional daytime experiments that require in-class effort and subsequent written summaries. Yet an astronomy class that does not have you look at the sky with your own eyes and learn some of its more familiar sights is denying you an important part of your intellectual heritage. So you will be required to participate in four hours of nighttime activities: TWO sessions of one hour each to study the brighter constellations in the early evening summer sky; and TWO sessions of one hour each to learn the use of a commercially available astronomical telescope. While you can learn telescope operation partly during the daytime, the only time constellations can be studied in the sky is after the Sun has set. Attendance at these sessions will be mandatory. Those with unexcused absences will be given a zero grade for this portion of the course. Those with excused absences will be able to make up the missed time by appointment with the instructor. Permission to miss one of these evening activities must be obtained prior to session. University-accepted, written documentation will be required. Evening time spent at the observatory will be compensated by cancellation of an equivalent amount of laboratory work.

Because these two activities only scratch the surface of astronomical observation, you may elect to do several "explorations" or laboratory activities for EXTRA CREDIT. All of these activities will be conducted outside of class in teams: some will require computer use in the Astronomy Computer Laboratory; some, work in a laboratory, and some, actual observations on clear days and/or nights. Written instructions will be available from the instructor and may be supplemented by verbal instructions. Activity write-ups will be due at times specified by the instructor.

Given the vagaries of Midwest weather, those activities that do require outdoor daytime or nighttime observations must be done during the earliest available clear periods. You may make your observations at a site of your choosing or at the Whitewater Observatory site west of Hyer Hall and the University Center. The observatory will be open only at nighttime after class when I will be present to supervise your use of it.

Even though the Universe is the astronomer's laboratory, we cannot expect to conduct all -- or even most -- of these activities outdoors! Some will require your use of the planetarium simulator software Voyager Version 2.0 available on the Macintosh computers in the Observatory. Some time during the first few weeks of class, you will be instructed on how to use the Mac computers and the Voyager program. Once you have completed the required introductory activity, you and your team may begin working on these Extra Credit activities. Due dates for these activities will be spread throughout the semester to permit you to pace yourself in completing them.

Understanding the scope and methods of an experimental science requires participating in that science's activities. Since astronomy claims some of the largest physical systems as objects of its study, study of these takes more than a single night. Sample extra credit activities are given below:

1. constellation study going beyond the required activity, including familiarization and mapping;

2. determination of the Moon's orbit around the Earth by plotting once per night from Full Moon to Full Moon -- and at least once per hour for an entire night -- the changing position of the Moon among the stars;

3. brightness variation measurements of variable stars; or

4. an approved project of your choice.

C. Credits, Contact Hours and the Grades You Receive

Many students want to know how much time they should be putting into this course in order to get a particular grade. Unfortunately, because each student comes to this course with different study habits and differing abilities in first-semester high school algebra, I can give no single answer. What I can tell you is that the university sets a minimum level of effort which each student must devote per credit earned for all courses at the university, a minimum found in Section V-C, page 1 (revised 1992 August 1), of the University Handbook:

Source: Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

The following defines how many hours of in-class and out-of-class time is required per credit.

A minimum of 800 minutes (sixteen 50-minute classes) in the classroom with the instructor equals one credit of class time. Out-of-class work must be included and must total a minimum of 1,600 minutes per credit.

The credit/hours can be offered in a variety of formats. However, courses offered in non-conventional time configurations must identify, in the course proposal, a time frame to accommodate a minimum of 800 minutes of direct contact per credit and a minimum of 1,600 minutes of out-of-class work for each credit offered.

Introduction to Astronomy 112 is a five-credit course that meets for four 50-minute lecture and one 100-minute laboratory session per week. Four credits are given for your work before, in and after lectures, and one credit is given for your work before, in and after laboratories. This implies you should be spending a minimum of two hours studying for each lecture and a minimum of four hours for each laboratory. If you are not receiving the grade you think you deserve, ask yourself if you are putting in the minimum amount of study time outside of class that the university expects you to spend. If not, then you have additional work to do. If you are putting in that level of effort and getting a C when you want a higher grade, then you must realize that each person may need to study much longer than the university-sanctioned minimum in order to earn higher grades. Most of you already know how much effort it takes to get B's and A's in demanding college courses. Some of you do not and will learn it in this course. Welcome to the Real World of learning new knowledge.

IV. Learning Teams, Learning Tools, Progress Evaluations and Extra Credit.

A. Learning Teams

Learning Teams (or Study Groups) will be used for completion of some in-class and some out-of-class work. This instructional model is used in schools of business around the country as part of the "Case Study" method (e.g., Harvard Business School) at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and it is becoming increasingly popular at the pre-college level. Why? Because only when you are actively engaged in the learning process does any of what you try to learn become part of your mental toolkit. Active engagement requires critical reading, writing, drawing and thoughtful discussion of concepts from a variety of perspectives -- including, possibly, the construction of physical models to give substance to abstract concepts. You will not retain what you hear or read unless you approach the task in an "active" manner. Active learning behaviors will be outlined in a separate handout.

Each learning team will be composed of three or four members. Task responsibilities will be divided between team members, and the team will produce a single gradeable product. Because teamwork will be an essential part of your work in this class, your team participation will be evaluated several times during the semester. The results from these evaluations will be incorporated into homework section of your semester grade.

At the semester's beginning, I will arbitrarily assign people to teams. Later, I may assign members to specific teams so that a broad spectrum of background and ability is represented on each team.

B. Daily and Extra Credit Homework; Collaboration Privilege

1. A brief, required, daily homework assignment (DHA) will be given at the end of most lecture periods. It will be due at the beginning of the next lecture period and returned the lecture period following its due date. Late submissions will be accepted only from students with excused[4] absences. Answers to daily homework problems will be discussed in class on the day they are submitted.

Answering these few daily questions will require your bringing together conceptually all of the material presented in lecture and in the reading material for that day. Unless specified otherwise, you will be expected to write your answers clearly, completely and on your own.

2. Extra-credit homework assignments may be given during lecture on Friday. They must be handed in at the beginning of class the following Monday. Late submissions will be accepted only from students with excused absences.

3. Until I find the privilege being abused, Learning Teams may work together only on specified homework assignments, provided each team member fulfills two conditions. First, regardless of the degree of collaboration, you must write your own uniquely phrased answer to each question to receive credit. Answers found substantially the same will receive a zero grade. Secondly, each of you must acknowledge the help you received on a specific question, documenting with whom you worked in a footnote to your answer. If I discover substantial abuses of the collaboration privilege, it will be rescinded later in the semester. So stay honest!

C. Weekly Learning Verifications

1. Weekly Learning Verifications, or WLV's, will be given each Thursday. Answers for the Thursday WLV will be distributed when the WLV is collected. One makeup WLV may be taken for each required WLV during the following week. This make-up may be taken before the following Thursday. These must be taken during my office hours on the indicated days. Attendance at and completion of the Thursday WLV is required. Only those with excused[5] absences will be permitted to take the make-up WLV. Those with excused absences will be able to make up a given WLV by appointment.

The highest grade from among these “quiz opportunities” will be recorded as your WLV grade for that week. You need take the "retake" only if y our grade on the in-class WLV was lower than the WLV grade you desire to achieve. Those of you who prepare carefully will find it necessary to take only the first of the two WLV’s for a particular week.

D. Summary Examinations and Final Examination

Two Summary Examinations and a Final Examination will be given during the course. Each Summary Exam will cover approximately one-half of the course material. These exams will be similar in form to the DHA’s and WLV's. Makeup exams will be given only to students with excused[6] absences. The Final Exam will cover all the course material and be of the same form as the Summary Exams. However, it will count 1.5 times as much as a single Summary Exam. Provided both Summary Exams are administered, students with an A average prior to the Final Exam will be excused from taking it. Dates for these exams will be as follows:

MidTerm, Part 1: 9:55-10:45 AM Wednesday, October 28th;

MidTerm, Part 2: 9:55-10:45 AM Thursday, October 29th; graded and returned Monday, November 2^nd

EndTerm, Part 1: 9:55-10:45 AM Wednesday, December 9^th;

EndTerm, Part 2: 9:55-10:45 AM Thursday, December 10; graded and returned Monday, December 14th

Final Exam: 10:00-12 Noon, Wednesday, December 16^th

E. Grade Policy

For assigning a final course grade, the weighting attached to each of the evaluation implements described above will be as follows: 40% for Examinations (each exam will be curved separately); 40% for Learning Verifications (no curve will be applied), with Daily Homework being summed, curved and used to replace the lowest Learning Verification grade; and 20% for Laboratory Activities (no curve will be applied). Because with the exception of DHA’s your credit is distributed evenly between Summary Examinations and Learning Verifications, it is essential to keep your averages up in all categories. It is impossible to achieve a high average without having high averages in all categories. This grading system rewards consistent effort and penalizes inconsistent work.

Extra credit work will be added into your numerical grade only after a provisional final numerical average is calculated. Extra credit will determine the difference only for borderline cases, i.e., raising a C+ to a B- or a B+ to an A. As such, Extra Credit will count at most 2.5 points out of 100.

All final averages will be compared to the following absolute curve and a letter grade assigned accordingly: A = 89.50-100.0%; B = 79.50-89.49%; C = 69.50-79.49%; D = 59.50-69.49%; and, F = below 59.49%. Plus and minus grades will not be assigned as final grades in this class.

F. Absence Policy for Homework, Quizzes and Tests

1. If you have an unexcused absence from class when a DHA is assigned, you are required to obtain the problem from a classmate or the instructor and hand it in at the required time. A DHA missed because of an unexcused absence will be recorded as a zero grade. Those with excused absences must obtain a make-up DHA from the instructor upon their return to class and submit the result the following lecture period.

2. There will be no make-up of missed initial or repeated WLV's, unless you have been excused in advance by the instructor and provide him with written documentation on your return of the University activity that took you away from class or of the medical or family emergency it represented. If you have an unexcused absence from class when any WLV is given, whether it is the original or a repeat, you will not be able to take that particular WLV. A missed WLV due to an unexcused absence will be recorded as a zero grade.

3. Attendance at examinations is mandatory. Those with unexcused absences from an examination will be given a zero grade for that examination. Those with excused absences will be able to make up the missed test by appointment with the instructor. Permission to miss an examination must be obtained from the instructor prior to examination.

4. University policy adopted by Faculty Senate and the Whitewater Student Government states that students will not be academically penalized for missing class in order to participate in university-sanctioned events. They will be provided an opportunity as outlined above to make up any work that is missed. A university-sanctioned event is defined as any intercollegiate athletic contest or other such event as determined by the Provost. Activity sponsors are responsible for obtaining the Provost's prior approval of an event as being university-sanctioned and for providing the Provost an official list of participants. Students are responsible for notifying their instructors in advance of their participation in such events by providing them with a note written and signed by both the activity’s sponsor and the Provost’s Office. A student that fails to present such a note prior to the event will not be awarded an excused absence.

G. Submission of Written Work

All written work, both normal (e.g., homework) and Extra Credit, prepared inside or outside of class, must be typed or written in ink. All work in calculations must be shown clearly and logically but may be written in pencil. Answers, however, must be typed or written in ink.

Any work incorrectly submitted in pencil will be returned ungraded; if this work is not rewritten in ink or typed and then resubmitted, it will receive a zero grade.

During the course of the semester, some of your work will be assigned by Email; and some of your homework must be submitted to me by Email. I will be sending some astronomy supplements via a listserv to your individual Email accounts. All email I send you will be sent to your university account, so make sure it does not fill up. You will need to read your Email daily so as not to miss some assignments.

H. Extra Credit Work

Extra credit activities have already been discussed in earlier paragraphs. Below are listed some additional ways in which you can earn extra credit for the course.

An extra credit, optional field trip is available this session: on a Saturday of your choosing, you may take a tour of Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, one of the world's most important observatories and home of the world's largest refracting telescope. Interested students should obtain instructions describing what they will have to submit to receive credit for this field trip, times of Yerkes tours and how to get to Yerkes from the instructor.

Another way to earn extra credit is to participate meaningfully during all classes. During the first lecture on a given unit, you will be given that unit's reading assignment. You should have completed the reading assignment and have started working through the Study Guide's material before that unit's second lecture. One way I will encourage your being an "active learner" is to ask leading questions throughout each lecture period, whether I am lecturing or you are working in teams. Usually, volunteers will be sought, but I will also try to engage those who do not participate. Your best guides to the questions I will ask are (1) topics discussed in previous lectures, (2) the questions in the homework and (3) the Self-Test questions in the Study Guide. Please review your notes before class and work conscientiously through the Study Guide. If you do, you will have no trouble answering my questions or those of your teammates.

V. Attendance and Classroom Etiquette

Attendance is expected at all class periods, since all class periods will involve both lecture and group work. Because lecture content contains testable material, you are held responsible for obtaining the notes of a willing classmate for the lectures you do miss.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ATTENDANCE WILL BE TAKEN AT ALL LECTURES. This information is one category of Extra Credit that will count toward your final grade. If you must be absent, you must call me in advance to inform me of the reason and to make arrangements for making up missed work. If you miss any work because of an unannounced or unexcused absence, you will not be able to make up that work: it will be assigned a zero grade.

Finally, I expect your attention and polite cooperation during all class functions: courtesy given results in courtesy returned. Talking amongst yourselves during lectures will not be tolerated, since it disrupts the progress of the class and diminishes the value of the class for those who sincerely wish to learn the material. If you have a question about the material or the lecture in progress, ask me, not your neighbor. Those who exhibit uncivil behavior will be warned. Persistently disruptive students will be dropped from this class.

VI. Policies on Electronic Devices

A. Calculator Policy

Successful completion of this course requires your possession of a scientific calculator with at least the power of the Casio fx-300 series. You are expected to bring a working scientific calculator to every class. If you do not already own such a calculator, I recommend you purchase a Texas Instruments TI30-XIIs at Wal-Mart for about $15. Of course, when permitted, you may use as expensive a scientific calculator as you wish to purchase, provided it possesses at least the functions available on the Casio fx-300 series. In all cases, you will be solely responsible for your calculator's condition: viz. , you will not be excused from a quiz or an examination because you forgot your calculator or because it failed to work some time during that period.

IMPORTANT NOTE: During exams, use of graphing calculators will not be permitted. If you use a graphing calculator at other times, you will be required to leave it in your room or check it in at the front desk. Yon will then check out a Texas Instruments TI30-XIIs calculator provided by the instructor. These will be available for checkout in class before the tests are distributed and collected when the tests are turned in.

B. Laptop Computers

Personal laptop computers will not be used during this class. Since they will not be used, do not set them up.

C. Cell Phones, Pagers, MP3 players, Portable Game Systems, etc.

None of the above devices will be used as part of class or laboratory activities. They must be all turned off and stowed in your personal belongings before class begins and left stowed until class ends. Use of any of these devices during a quiz or test will result in an automatic failure of that quiz or test.

VII. Question-and-Answer Sessions and Office Hours

Questions will be answered at any time during class periods so long as they are relevant to the discussion. Otherwise, questions will be answered before or after class, by appointment or during my regularly scheduled office hours listed on the first page of this syllabus. You may also send me questions by Email. If you submit a question by 8 PM, I will answer it before class the following morning.

VIII. University Policy Statements

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is dedicated to a safe, supportive and non-discriminatory learning environment. It is the responsibility of all undergraduate and graduate students to familiarize themselves with University policies regarding Special Accommodations, Misconduct, Religious Beliefs Accommodation, Discrimination and Absence due to University-sponsored Events. (For details, please refer to the Undergraduate and Graduate Timetables; the Rights and Responsibilities section of the Undergraduate Bulletin; the Academic Requirements and Policies and the Facilities and Services sections of the Graduate Bulletin; the Student Academic Disciplinary Procedures [UWS Chapter 14]; and the Student Nonacademic Disciplinary Procedures [UWS Chapter 17].)

Avoiding Academic Misconduct

Academic integrity and honesty are critical values at UW-Whitewater. Adopting such integrity enriches your education and demonstrates the kind of person you are. More importantly, committing academic misconduct has serious penalties and could get you suspended or expelled from all schools in the UW System. Think about the impact that would have on your future! Even if your punishment is not that severe now, future employers will certainly think twice about hiring a cheater. That being said, many students have not thought about academic misconduct or how to avoid it.

According to the UW System Academic Misconduct code, the following behaviors constitute academic misconduct:

Seeking to claim credit for the work or efforts of another without authorization or citation. This may include:

- buying a term paper from another person or from a website

- submitting another’s work without proper citation (ask your faculty member!)

- “cutting and pasting” material from websites or other sources

- submitting any work or papers (or portions of work) done by anyone other than yourself without proper citation

- writing part of a paper or project by yourself and using part of someone else’s work without proper citation

- submitting even the ideas or another without proper citation. Even if you change the words around, it’s still plagiarism.

Using unauthorized materials or fabricated data in any academic exercise. This may include:

- Submitting a paper or project in one class that you submit in another class or “recycling” your papers or projects

- Making up data in a paper or project

- Using notes or cheat sheets

- Working on a paper or project with other people

Forging or falsifying academic documents or records. This may include:

- Putting your name on academic work that you did not do

- Submitting work that contains false or “made up” information

- Lying or providing false information on any departmental or university form, or signing another person’s name

- Signing into a class or exam for another student or having another student do so for you

Impeding or damaging the academic work of others. This may include:

- Changing someone else’s academic work (papers, answers, lab work, computer work, etc.)

- Accessing another person’s computer work

- Accessing or damaging another person’s computer, accounts or files

- Stealing or damaging another person’s papers, books, computer disks or work

Engaging in conduct aimed at making false representation of a student’s academic performance, which may include:

- Taking a test for another person

- Having another person take a test for you

- Submitting a paper or project that is not completely your work (without proper citation)

- Working on a paper or project for someone else

- Working on a paper or project with someone else, unless permitted by the instructor

- Copying another person’s work or answers

- Using “cheat sheets”, notes, electronic devices or other methods or unauthorized information

- Providing test questions to another person

- Obtaining test questions from another person

- Stealing examination or course materials

Assisting other students in any of these acts. This means that even if YOU are not the person who turns in the inappropriate work, you may be held responsible for being involved in another’s academic misconduct. You are responsible for your own academic integrity and “I didn’t know” is not an excuse. If you’re not sure about something, ask your faculty member about it before doing it. Make your UW-Whitewater education the most it can be. Choose to take the high road. Choose to make a difference!

IX. The Mathematical Content of this Course

One question I am asked repeatedly at the beginning of this course, both during class and in private consultation, is how much "math" this course will require. The easy answer is this course requires you to use no more mathematics than what UW-Whitewater requires for entrance: one year of high school algebra and one year of high school geometry. In fact, you will have to use only a small fraction of what you learned in both of these courses, since introductory astronomy uses only the most basic algebra and geometry. Furthermore, as I introduce new topics, I will review the mathematics you will need to use so that all of you will start on a level playing field. I will even provide instructions on how to use your calculators for some of the more unusual problems you will encounter.

Sadly, such statements do not put all minds at ease. Some students continue, "But I was never good in math," or "I hated most of my math courses," implying either they will not do well in this course or will end up hating it. I draw such students aside for one-on-one discussions that go something like this:

"From your comments I conclude that you never had a good math teacher or that you suffered through some embarrassing episodes with insulting, insensitive teachers. You are one of the many 'mathematically walking wounded' that enter college hoping never to solve another math problem. Yet despite your very bitter experiences, I know everyone can be good in basic algebra and geometry, given adequate instruction and encouragement. Furthermore, every individual who wants to find work outside the service sector will have to possess good command of basic algebra and geometry. Your counterparts in Europe and Asia accept mastering these skills as their obligation. To compete for jobs in today's world, you must also. One of the goals of my course is to show you that you, too, can be successful in simple mathematics if you are willing to try. I am willing to meet you more than halfway in this endeavor. What effort are you willing to put forth?"

Apart from your learning and practicing marketable skills, there is a further reason for employing mathematics in introductory astronomy. First, simple mathematics can reduce the immense distances between astronomical objects or the sizes, masses and ages of stars and galaxies down to comprehensible sizes. Not even astronomers can comprehend distances between stars, their contents or their ages without reducing them to values more people-sized. Secondly, for reasons yet undiscovered, our universe possesses mathematical regularity which, when perceived clearly, is disarmingly beautiful. And not much math must be used before this beauty becomes apparent. Paul Davies in his 1984 book Superforce has the following to say about math in introductory science courses:

"To students struggling with undergraduate mathematics . . ., the equations of physics seem horribly complicated and opaque. What they have yet to appreciate is that mathematics is, among other things, a language. When that language has been learned, immensely complicated things can be elegantly summarized in the mathematical equivalent of a one-liner.

"In this respect, mathematics differs little from other technical languages (though it is immeasurably more powerful and comprehensive). Imagine, for example, trying to explain an investment scheme to somebody in ordinary English, without being able to use the words capital, interest or inflation. Or envisage describing the workings of a car engine without ever mentioning pistons, camshafts, gaskets or carburetors. Perhaps the greatest scientific discovery of all time is that nature is written in mathematical code. We do not know the reason for this, but it is the single most important fact that enables us to understand, control and predict the outcome of physical processes. Once we have cracked the code for some particular physical system, we can read nature like a book.

"Beauty is a nebulous concept, yet there is no doubt that it provides a source of inspiration for professional scientists. In some cases, when the road ahead may be unclear, mathematical beauty and elegance guide the way. It is something the physicist feels intuitively, a sort of irrational faith that nature prefers the beautiful to the ugly. So far, this belief has been a reliable and powerful traveling companion, in spite of its subjective quality.

"And therein lies its appeal and utility. Nature is beautiful. We don't know why this is so, but experience teaches us that beauty implies utility. Successful theories are always beautiful theories. They are beautiful not because they are successful, but because of their inherent symmetry and mathematical economy. Beauty in physics is a value judgment involving professional intuition and cannot readily be communicated to the layman, because it is expressed in a language that the layman has not learned -- the language of mathematics. But to one who is conversant with that language, the beauty is as apparent as poetry.

"This brings me back to where I came in. Mathematics is language, the language of nature. If you can't speak a language, you can't understand the beauty of its poetry. There are always skeptics who say, 'What is this mysterious mathematical beauty you speak of? I don't see anything beautiful about a mess of symbols. You physicists are just deluding yourselves.' I like to reply by comparing mathematics with music. For someone who had heard only single musical notes, the beauty of a symphony would be impossible to explain. Yet who would deny that there is real beauty in a symphony, albeit of an abstract and indefinable nature? Likewise, for a person whose experience of mathematics is limited to counting numbers, how can one communicate the sense of delight, the deep and meaningful appeal, of Maxwell's equations? Nevertheless, the aesthetic quality is there sure enough. And physicists of good mathematical taste produce altogether better theories than (those of poor taste), just as do their counterparts in musical composition.

"It is one of the great tragedies of our society that -- from fear, poor teaching or lack of motivation -- the vast majority of people have shut themselves off from the mathematical poetry and music of nature. The sweeping vista that mathematics reveals is denied to them. They may delight over the scent of a rose or the color of a sunset, but a whole dimension of aesthetic experience is foreclosed to them."

X. Possible Topics to be Covered

I. Introduction to the Universe at Large

-- distances and masses: from the smallest atom to the largest structures in the Universe

-- ages and durations: from the beginning of Time to the present

-- the "zoo in the sky": the names and properties of selected astronomical objects

II. The Earth in Space

-- phenomena of the Earth, Moon and Sun, including eclipses and space motions

-- understanding the motions of planets in the Solar System

-- determining distances in the Solar System and to the nearby stars

III. The Nature of Light

-- rainbows of light and the electromagnetic spectrum; light as waves or particles

-- how hot objects give off light and how we determine their temperatures

-- how light dims between source and observer and how it tells us star velocity

-- how atoms seem to be constructed

-- how light and atoms interact

-- spectral lines: the fingerprints of the chemical elements

IV. Stellar Brightnesses, Magnitudes and Distances

-- how the eye "measures" brightness compared to how instruments measure it

-- how we use brightness measurements to determine stellar distances

V. Tools of the Astronomer

-- how light is bent by lenses and reflected by mirrors

-- how telescopes are built and how we use them; telescopes for "light" we cannot see

-- the astronomer's instruments

VI. Our Sun, the Closest Star

-- the Sun’s structure and physical properties

-- how the Sun converts matter into energy

-- brief description of the Sun’s entire lifetime

VII. Stellar Classification and the Varieties of Stars in the Sky

-- how we use a star's "rainbow" to determine its atmospheric temperature and pressure

-- what these "rainbows" tell us about other stellar properties

-- relating stellar atmospheric temperatures and pressures to a star's total energy production

-- exploring the families of variable stars

-- determining stellar distances, diameters and masses from variable stars

VIII. Stellar Energy Generation

-- what is the structure of a star

-- how a star keeps from collapsing

-- the ways stars turn mass into energy

IX. Life Cycles of Stars

-- how stars are born from interstellar clouds of dust and gas

-- how stars burn core hydrogen during their maturity

-- how stars end their lives with a bang or a whimper

X. The Milky Way

-- the discovery of the Milky Way

-- what strange objects exist in the Milky Way and where they are

-- how the Milky Way evolved from its birth to its current size and shape

XI. The Universe of Galaxies

-- types of galaxies; active galaxies and quasars

-- clusters of galaxies and the largest structures in the universe