Astronomy 102A, 101A and 101EA: Washburn University: 2005 Spring
The course motto: very reassuring I think.
Classes: Places and times.
Syllabus Items
Wait 15 seconds at least. (A self-note to the instructor.)
But it is NOT a recognized Washburn on-line course.
Students are TASKED with using/learning how to use campus computer resources if they don't yet know or have no home or other computer resources.
Washburn's Information Technology Services (ITS) provides many facilities including computer labs and printers and assistance.
If you do NOT have UNIX account you may need one. You can apply at the Bennett 104 dispatch window for login name and password: see ITS Quickfacts for more information---much more information---more than you ever wanted to know.
Students can set up their own unofficial Washburn webpages. See Student Webpages. The URLs are all http://students.washburn.edu/studentusername I think.
The instructor can also help people get started.
This page is linked from the official Washburn
AS 102A/101A/101EA course page.
Real TEXTBOOKS are always more material and more detail than a course
can actually cover.
That makes them a good resource, but a poor substitute for course notes
for either the students or the instructor.
The appropriate sequence of
web lectures
for the solar system/cosmology course
are meant to be almost exactly the course and the course notes
How much of the sequence of lectures for your course do you need
to know?
The short answer is all of it. The subject (see below)
is extensive.
Students do NOT need to take notes and, in fact, you
CANNOT take complete notes though you may want to take
some for staying-awake purposes.
There is usually more on
the screen than anyone can write down and still have the lecture
flow along.
In order for the lectures to replace a text, they have to be
in full sentences and be wordier than ordinary lecture headings
and points.
Try not to be mesmerized by all the words on the screen---resist,
RESIST.
In lecturing, the instructor will often focus on only images,
any calculation, and key sentences. Often the instructor will
skip over INDENTED or LINKED digressions.
Some lectures or lecture sections might be omitted from a sequence.
This depends on time and also relevance to the respective course.
Students can download the lectures in text or some other format.
It is recommended that you do NOT download them all at once.
Many lectures are very complete, but some are not.
Many will never be perfected because the astro lore they
contain is a moving target.
15 second wait at least.
This is a good book which covers the topics of both courses.
Compared to the web lectures, sometimes its discussion is longer,
sometimes shorter.
Readings from the text that are comparable to the web lectures are specified.
The text is closer to the web lectures for the Cosmology course.
The web lectures are a bit more closely keyed to the questions I ask on
tests, but
I think comparable marks can be obtained either reading the web lectures
or doing the textbook readings.
The text can be recommended to students for whom downloading
the homeworks is a sufficiency of downloading. The web lectures
downloaded are just a messy sheaf of paper after all.
Sometimes it's just a lot more convenient to have
a compact, bound book in hand.
The University Bookstore and
Textbook Team (at 21st and Washburn Avenue, Suite 205)
have lots of used copies to sell.
But text has NO resale value since a new edition is coming out soon.
Great stuff if I say so myself.
And to learn the course, it helps to appreciate the stuff.
Physically, humankind is pretty minute in the universe.
But amazingly we can look out from our little platform
and see what certainly seems to be INFINITY and ETERNITY.
Some general astronomy (e.g., the
celestial
sphere,
lunar phases,
etc.),
BACKGROUND PHYSICS, and other material
is also included.
The BACKGROUND PHYSICS is essential: astronomy is based on physics.
Our approach to the physics is largely qualitative.
Concepts, including force, energy, and light, are introduced/reviewed.
There is a MATH COMPONENT to this course. Up to about 20 % of
questions on tests may involve math. The rationale for this is to give
some appreciation of the mathematical nature of astronomy.
The math is multiplication and division with the odd
square root or bit of algebra.
For students who are unrefreshed in math, the math component may seem
challenging.
A math refresher is given for that reason as
IAWL Lecture 1:
Scientific Notation, Units, Math, Angles, Plots, Motion, Orbits
The solar system and cosmology courses
are very similar through the first three weeks or so.
It is hoped that students will make progress in achieving
some of skills in
Washburn's General Educational Statement: The ability to
Is this a hard or an easy course?
Somewhere in between in the instructor's view.
There are NO course projects or essays and all tests and homeworks
are multiple-choice questions.
But there ARE a lot of things to learn: facts and concepts.
Astronomy lore is EXTENSIVE: it goes on and on.
It is hoped that the facts and concepts
cohere into stories that are memorable,
and so one knows the answer to a question because one knows the
story into which the answer fits.
Typically a homework is 5 to 30 multiple-choice questions.
Homeworks are NOT handed in or marked.
They are learning aids.
Typically about 50 to 70 % of test questions will be drawn from
the homeworks or, in the case of the FINAL, past tests also.
The questions might be tweeked a bit.
The in-class exams cover the material up to some cut-off point
that will be announced in class.
The final is about 50% weighted on material since the 3rd in-class
exam and about 50% weighted on all the material that came before
the 3rd in-class exam.
The tentative dates for the exams are:
Thus, they are worth 20 % each.
The final is worth 40% of the final grade.
The tests are all multiple-choice questions
and scantrons are NOT used.
An answer table will be provided. They are closed book; calculators
are allowed.
Students are asked to show a PHOTO ID when handing in tests.
Make-up tests are possible, but students must ask for them
promptly and avoid knowing anything about given tests in any section.
In general, students who have not taken a given test
must avoid knowing anything about that test given
in other sections or to other people.
But it is good that students visit an observatory at some time during
the course. It is just a good educational thing to do. It is good
for your souls.
I will give ONE EXTRA POINT on a test if a student
visits an observatory DURING the semester and takes advantage
of what is there to be seen.
There are NO seconds: you only get ONE extra point.
But that ONE could help if you end up near a grade boundary
on the wrong side.
The easiest observatory to visit is
Washburn's Crane Observatory on the roof of Stoffer Science Hall.
The Crane Observatory's
schedule of open houses gives the times and dates. All days
are thursdays.
The Crane open houses are canceled if weather does NOT
allow viewing.
Other available observatories are
the
Clyde W. Tombaugh Observatory of the University of Kansas in
Lawrence and the
Farpoint Observatory
in Wabaunsee County, Kansas run by
the Northeast Kansas
Amateur Astronomers League (NEKAAL).
Public viewing is available at scheduled times.
There may be observatories around or you may have a chance to visit one
on a trip.
Just inform the instructor that you have made an observatory
visit and you will be given the extra credit point.
If work or distance always precludes visiting Crane
or any other observatory, I will just give you the extra credit.
There is NO other extra credit with this course.
The rules say the average grade is to be a C and that's the way it
will be.
But the rules permit some freedom since ``excellent,'' ``well above
average,'' ``below average but passing,'' and ``failure'' are
not precisely defined.
During the semester current letter grades are assigned in
an automated fashion according the BELL CURVE---which physicists
call a Gaussian.
There is for instance NO need for F's at all.
At the end of the semester the instructor will make a
FINAL grade decision.
The instructor will NOT lower a grade from the
BELL CURVE assignment: the instructor might raise it depending
on several things including:
But students should count on anything.
Just do your best all along---subject to all the other constraints
in life.
If you desire a web posting of marks and grades, give an anonymous alias
on the fun quiz:
you only need to hand it in if you want
GRADE POSTING.
Follow the given alias rules.
The alias is ONLY for grade posting. You don't put it on
things you hand in and I won't recognize you by it.
You can, of course, give an alias at any time.
I do recommend that you ask for GRADE POSTING
since experience shows students, particularly as the semester nears the end,
do want to know what they've gotten.
Students may voluntarily identify themselves to the instructor for a
referral to SSWDO.
Thus we will just look over the sequence of lectures/topics
appropriate to the Solar System and Cosmology courses before we dig in.
Some lectures/topics may be omitted from either sequence
in order to complete the most important lectures/topics.
15 second wait at least.
On with the show:
Introductory Astronomy
Web Lectures (IAWL) for the Solar System/Cosmology courses.
Alien mesmerized by words.
Question: This recommendation is because:
The web lectures have a tendency to SEEM perfected and
that tends to inhibit questions from the students---we all have
to work against that inhibition.
All answers are right.
But as Dorothy said, there's no place like home.
Earthrise from Apollo 11, 1969jul16.
Credit:
NASA.
Well not quite.
_________________________________________________________________
Exam 101EA 101A 102A
_________________________________________________________________
Exam 1 Feb07 M Feb08 T Feb10 R (tentative)
Exam 2 Mar07 M Mar08 T Mar10 R (tentative)
Exam 3: Apr11 M Apr12 T Apr14 R (tentative)
Final Exam May09 M 7:00pm May10 T 9:00am May10 T 1:30 pm
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
The in-class tests are worth 60 % of the final grade.
3 in-class tests 60 % no drop
1 comprehensive final 40 % no drop
Letter grades will be assigned following the
Washburn Faculty Handbook grade rules.
The actual class will not usually have exactly this breakdown because
the class distribution will not be exactly a bell curve.
Grade Distribution of a Bell Curve
Grade Percentage of Standard deviations from mean
a bell-curve class for each grade bin.
in each grade bin A standard deviation is the
statistical width of
the distribution
A 10 % 1.28
B 25 % 0.38
C 45 % -0.84
D 15 % -1.64
F 5 % 0.
The bell curve grade point average is 2.20.
Beware of aliens bearing grades.