Why?
- To gain a broad understanding of our place in the Universe;
- To learn a familiarity with the pieces and processes of our particular Solar System;
- To develop general critical thinking and scientific analysis skills.
Logistics
| Class meeting time | 11:00-12:35, Monday-Friday, June 5-July 7. Final exam is July 7, during the regular class period. |
| Class meeting location | Duane Physics
Building, G125. We'll have three classes at the Fiske Planetarium
instead, at the regular time. There will be several additional
night-time sessions at the Sommers-Bosch observatory. Both the
planetarium and observatory are near the SE corner of
campus. |
| Textbook | The Cosmic
Perspective, by Bennett/Donahue/Schneider/Voit, available at the
bookstore. I'll hand out some additional reading throughout the
course. |
| Course Web Page | http://lasp.colorado.edu/~throop/astr1110 |
|
| Class Lunch | For anyone interested, we'll
gather after class every Friday and go up to the Hill for lunch. |
Personnel
| Instructor | Dr. Henry Throop,
throop@broccoli.colorado.edu |
| Office Location | Duane Physics,
D221. My office is one floor up and a few doors west of the
classroom. |
| Phone | (303) 492-3215 |
| Office Hours | T/Th, 3-4 PM or by
appointment. Feel free to stop by or call at other times too,
although I can't promise I'll be there unless we've arranged it ahead
of time. Generally afternoons are a much better choice than
mornings. |
| TA | Rob Morris, mitannic@idcomm.com |
| TA Office Hours | M-F, 2-3 PM, or by appointment. |
| TA Phone | TBA. Rob can be often be found during
the day at Fiske Planetarium, (303) 492-5002, or leave voicemail at (720) 406-0861. |
| TA Office Location | Duane Physics, F533, 5th floor.
The elevator to the Gamow Tower is just west of the classroom, but skips
the 1st floor. Get on from floors 1B or 2. |
| Mailboxes | Both Rob & I have mailboxes outside the
APS main office, Duane Physics E226. Our boxes are both in the lower left hand
corner just to the right of the door. |
| | |
Grading Policies
| Final grade is based on: |
|---|
| Homework (5) | 30% |
|---|
| Exams (2) | 25% |
|---|
| Participation | 15% |
|---|
| Final Exam | 30% |
|---|
| All grades (homework, exams, etc.) will be
available online via WebCT - talk to me or Rob if you haven't used this
system before. |
| Because this is an accelerated course,
late homework is strongly discouraged. Homework will be
collected at the start of class; any work turned in late will be marked
down at 20% per day, and work turned in after the solutions are posted
can't be accepted. Talk to me for any exceptions (medical, religious,
etc.). If you feel uncomfortable with the grading distribution (e.g.,
don't take tests well), talk to me immediately and we can
consider alternate arrangements.
|
| You'll be expected to attend class every day. If
you can't make a class for some reason, let me or Rob know ahead of
time, although it will be difficult to make up work. We will have
three sessions at Fiske Planetarium, and two night labs and one day lab
at Sommers-Bosch observatory. The in-class time will be split between
lectures, hands-on demonstrations, and collaborative group activities.
Your class participation grade depends will be based on your attendance
and participation in each part of the class. |
| Science happens through collaboration, and
few research papers are written with a single author. We will be doing
group work regularly during class. I encourage you to work with others
on the homework and exploring the world of astronomy in general.
The homework solutions that you turn in should be your own work,
in your own words, and you should be able to recreate and discuss them
yourself. Academic dishonesty on homework or exams will result in the
appropriate measures as dictated by myself and CU policy, but will
generally result in you failing the assignment, the exam, or the entire
course. |
Teaching Philosophy
| This is not a fact-based course: I
haven't memorized the velocity of Pluto to four significant figures,
and I hope you won't either. Nevertheless, it will be sometimes useful
to be able to calculate quantities like Pluto's velocity: for instance,
to compare whether Pluto moves faster, slower, or the same as the Earth, and
why. The goal of this class is to give you general tools and methods
of thinking: how to approach a problem, how to measure a quantity, how
to think on broad size-scales and time-scales, using logical thought to
describe what your eyes can see, analyzing how systems interact, and so
forth. The `facts' of astronomy are occasionally practical and useful
for everyday life, but in this course they'll be treated as coming
along for the ride, and cannot by themself motivate the course. But
they are fun, and we'll be exploring many parameters and
particularities of the solar system along the way. |
| Similarly, this is not a math course:
the emphasis is on understanding concepts, not computing numbers. To
understand the concepts, we'll be using some intermediate-level (high
school) algebra: manipulation of variables, solving for an unknown
quantity, exponents, and the occasional trig function. Math review
sessions will be scheduled as needed. A basic scientific calculator
will be useful. |
| If you don't understand something during class,
in the book, in the planetarium, or in the news -- or if you are
interested in areas not covered in the scope of the class -- speak
up! Someone else is probably thinking the same thing you are! Ask
during class, send e-mail, or come by our office hours. This class is
my sole job this term and I'd like for all of us to have an intense,
rewarding time while learning to observe and appreciate the natural
world around us. |
Dr. Henry Throop, University of Colorado / throop@broccoli.colorado.edu
Last modified 5-June-2000