INTRODUCTION TO PHYSICAL SCIENCE, PHY101
Spring 2021
| Instructor: | Dr. David R. Burgess | |
|---|---|---|
| E-mail: | dburgess@rivier.edu | |
| Internet: | PHY101 Homepage (http://studentworldteacher.net/courses/phy101) | |
| Delivery: | Canvas Modules, BigBlueButton (In Canvas Conferences) | |
| Text: | Daily Webpages (online); BASIC LOGICAL REASONING, BASIC MATHEMATICAL REASONING AND THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES by Burgess and Dolan (Available Online) |
Class Philosophy
If you think of scientists as odd-balls hovering over bubbling beakers while wearing white lab coats and funny looking spectacles, then this is the course for you! If you don't think any such thing, then this is really the course for you!
By the end of the course you should understand that scientists are ordinary people who are curious about the world around them. (You realize that ordinary people of all walks of life can be pretty odd!) They often systematically model events, in several different ways, to better understand why or how the events occur. They may want to understand better in order to make new materials, improve products, or to accomplish other goals where an understanding of these events is important. You will learn what kinds of models they might use and the main characteristics of these models. You will also gain some skill in building models of your own.
This course is required for those wishing to teach in the Elementary school and every attempt will be made to keep the course relevant to those students. This will include some discussions and homework assignments directed toward that field of study and activities that can be easily adapted to the elementary classroom. This is first, however, a college course taken to satisfy part of the science requirement in the core curriculum. All assignments will be evaluated according to the college standards associated with the core curriculum.
The real purpose of this course is to help you like science and enjoy looking at the world around you. I believe you will like science if you understand what science is about, know some basic background material, and are curious about the world around you.
This course will attempt to address these three areas, realizing that ultimately the responsibility for accomplishing this will rest upon each individual student.
Course Content
As a core course satisfying general education requirements, a significant amount of integration of basic skills from other areas will be done. You will need to draw on basic communication skills, basic reasoning skills, and basic mathematical skills. The core curriculum is established by the college and is an important part of your education, independent of your major, and this course can help develop those skills that are emphasized in the core curriculum. The physical sciences also provide an excellent opportunity to develop the college-wide competencies listed on the page titled Academic Assessment at Rivier College that go hand-in-hand with the core curriculum. These are basic and should be kept in mind as the course develops. In addition, you should acknowledge that whether the class is interesting or not depends mostly on you and that the class provides the framework for your own learning, not a substitute for it.
Although a theory course in the physical sciences, this course will not introduce you to all of the principles associated with the physical sciences. That would be impossible. This course will be hands-on and activity based as much as possible in the online environment, where selected concepts and principles will be used to illustrate the methods that scientists use, to introduce some of the most fundamental areas of physical science, and to develop better reasoning skills. The activities will be drawn from physics, chemistry, earth science and space science. As indicated before, however, equal attention to each area will be impossible.
The course will cover the areas outlined in the content outline and on the schedule page.
I have taught this course may times and don't usually feel a need to follow a strict schedule. This allows us to take more or less time depending on how fast we are able to grasp the material. In this online environment, however, I have felt compelled to assign topics and activities to specific days as shown on the schedule page, but it isn't written in stone. If we need more or less time we will take it.
Student Learning Outcomes
Each content web page has specific learning outcomes listed, some of them are: Students will be able to
- Write simple conditional arguments about physical observations.
- Identify the variables associated with density.
- Use the periodic table to predict ionic compounds.
- Describe why atoms stay together in molecules.
- Identify acids and bases.
- Describe what an intermolecular force is.
- Identify polar and nonpolar molecules.
- Do calculations using conservation of energy.
Homework
For a science course it is recommended that students spend 2-3 hours outside of class time for every hour in class to study and do homework for the course. For a 4-credit course like this one that would be 7-12 hours outside of class. The actual time needed will vary by student and depend on prior preparation, study habits, etc. For this class there will not be a lot of outside research needed, but there will be homework assignments given for each class meeting time. You can access all of them through Canvas, but some will be short responses to what is gone over in class, others will require looking at web pages developed for this course, and others will be assignments or "quizzes" administered directly through Canvas.
This homework will be divided into four categories: class, class review, webpage, and webpage review.
The class homework will generally be short and over what was covered during a class period. These will be due by 10 am on the day of the next class meeting. These will be graded 0-5 points for each question.
The class review homework will be a set of questions covering several meeting times. They will be graded with each question getting up to five points. Notice that there are no exams during the semester, only the final exam at the end of the semester. These class review homework sets were previously on exams given throughout the semester. They are now like take-home exams and that is why they have so much weight toward the final grade as shown below.
The webpage homework will be questions at the bottom of a webpage as part of a module over a specific topic. These questions will be spot-checked, but not graded. They will count one point for each page.
The webpage review homework will ask questions about several webpages. They will be graded with each question counting one point.
Each student is individually responsible to get, understand and complete the assignments on time, even when working in groups or when absent. You are encouraged to help each other understand the material covered in class, but don't hand in identical answers to homework problems. Late assignments will be penalized one point after three instances of being late (all late assignments, including the original three will be penalized).
Grading
There will be a cumulative final exam based on the material covered by the class review homework. The final grade will be determined as follows:
| Class Homework | 10% | |
|---|---|---|
| Class Review Homework | 40% | |
| Webpage Homework | 10% | |
| Webpage Review Homework | 25% | |
| Final Exam | 15% |
A student who earned 85% for class homework, 85% for the class review homework, 100% for the webpage homework, 90% for the webpage review homework, and 75% on the final would calculate their grade to be:
(.1)(85) + (.5)(85) + (.1)(100) + (.15)(90) + (.15)(75) = 85.75
and they would receive a B for the final grade. We will use the gradebook in Canvas to keep track of how you are doing and for determining the final grade.
Attendance/Course Delivery
Attendance is expected and in my face-to-face classes it has been proven crucial to understanding the topics presented in this course. When a class is missed the student is still responsible for the material that was covered in class and it is expected that the student will get notes and help from classmates. If there are still questions after going over the material with another student, the instructor will be available on the discussion board a half-hour before class and a half-hour after class on the days that we meet or as arranged by the student. Students can ask questions through email at any time except Sunday. The instructor will not be available on Sunday. This online class will also have webpages available for students to study that cover the same material.
For this completely online class we will be holding both synchronous and asynchronous class meeting times. The Course Schedule Page identifies the days that will be asynchronous, the rest of the days we will meet together remotely during our scheduled class times, MWF 11:00-12:15, using The Big Blue Button conference software in Canvas.
The course content will be delivered using the Canvas Modules section. Start at the top of the Modules and work your way down as the semester progresses. Don't skip modules.
Academic Policies
On our class policy page there are specific statements that have been extracted from the policies common to all undergraduate courses at Rivier College on Attendance, Habitual Non-Attendance, Academic Assessment, Academic Honesty, Classroom Behavior, Electronic Devices and Students With Disabilities. You are expected to be familiar with these policies and adhere to them.