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GENERAL INFORMATION
When: M W F 3:00 pm - 3:50 pm Where: AHC3 215
Professor: Dr. Caroline Simpson Phone: (305) 348-1565
Professor's Office: CP 217A Webpage: faculty.fiu.edu/~simpsonc
Professor's Office Hours: By Appointment E-mail: simpsonc@fiu.edu
COURSE BLACKBOARD SHELL

All course materials, including short youtube lectures, presentations, and announcements, will be posted in the course Blackboard shell. To access the shell, go to http://online.fiu.edu and log on using your FIU MyAccounts username and password (the same ones you use to access your my.fiu.edu account).


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COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course is designed to familiarize you with the universe in which we live and with the principles of scientific inquiry that have enabled us to explore and understand that universe.

The textbook is built around 5 themes:

  1. We are part of the universe and thus can learn about our origins by studying the universe.
  2. The universe is comprehensible through scientific principles that anyone can understand.
  3. Science is not a body of facts but rather a process through which we seek to understand the world around us.
  4. A course in Astronomy is the beginning of a life-long learning experience.
  5. Astronomy affects each of us personally with the new perspectives it offers.

The first part of the course will concentrate on the history and fundamentals of astronomy, including the night sky as seen from the Earth, the apparent motions of celestial objects, lunar and solar eclipses, phases of the moon, the historical development of astronomy, and the nature of light and matter and how they interact. The rest of the course will be about the formation and evolution of the planets of our solar system, stars, and galaxies. This includes a close look at the nearest star - our Sun - the different types and properties of stars, how they are born and how they die. We will also examine the huge collections of stars known as galaxies, including our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

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COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of the semester, students will understand:

  • C1: the scientific method and how we apply it to investigate the universe
  • C2: the size and scale of the solar system, galaxies, and the universe
  • C3: how the motions of the Earth affect our view of the sky over days, months, and years; including lunar and solar eclipses
  • C4: the cause of the seasons
  • C5: the basic physical laws that govern the motion of objects, including the planets
  • C6: what light is, how it works, and how we use it to study distant objects
  • C7: how the solar system was formed and evolved over time
  • C8: the physical characteristics of the individual planets, including their compositions, atmospheres, and the physical processes that dictate these properties
  • C9: how we detect extrasolar planets, what they are like, and how they formed
  • C10: how stars, including the Sun, produce energy
  • C11: how we measure the properties of stars, such as luminosity, temperature, and mass
  • C12: what the different classes of stars are and how we classify them
  • C13: what the life stages are for low-mass and high-mass stars, and how they die
  • C14: what our galaxy is, how it formed, and how it changes over time
  • C15: how we discovered that the universe is expanding, the history of the universe, evidence for the Big Bang, Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and how the universe will end

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TEXTBOOK

We will be using Chapters 1 - 6 and Chapters 14-23 in The Cosmic Perspective, 6th edition (2010), by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, and Voit, published by Pearson/Addison Wesley

  • Texts:
    1. The Cosmic Perspective Fundamentals, 2nd edition (2016)
      Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, & Voit
      Textbook and access to Mastering Astronomy Online
      ISBN-10: 0133858642 / ISBN-13: 978-0133858648

      Textbook Separately
      ISBN-10: 0133889564 / ISBN-13: 978-0133889567

      You may purchase your textbook online at the FIU Bookstore, or purchase the ebook at the bookstore, bookstore website, or online at the MasteringAstronomy website.

      AND


    2. Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy
      3rd edition (2013)
      Prather, Slater, Adams, & Brissenden; published by Addison-Wesley
      ISBN-10: 0321820460 (ISBN-13:  9780321820464)

      Available at the FIU Bookstore,

  • AND The MasteringAstronomy web-based homework system. This requires an access code for the SECOND EDITION of Cosmic Perspective Fundamentals. Access codes for the 1st edition will not work.
    • If purchased new, the 2nd edition of the text comes with a Student Access kit for the Mastering Astronomy website.
    • OR once you log into the MasteringAstronomy website at http:/www.masteringastronomy.com you can then purchase an access code (and access to the ebook if you want) using a credit card online.


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TextCover


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COURSE PREREQUISITES

There are no prerequisites for this course.

COURSE EXPECTATIONS AND MATERIALS

Attendance and Participation: We will be presenting some of the course material in lectures, and you will be participating in collaborative classroom activities called Lecture Tutorials (LT). The LT activities are designed to help you work through and understand specific concepts and are to be completed in groups of three during class by talking through the questions and writing a detailed, consensus response. You will not submit these for grading, but they will be collected and will count toward your participation grade (see below). However, the questions are quite similar to the questions you will find on the course exams and you are therefore strongly encouraged to consider these activities as a critical component to your success in the course. The LT workbook is available at the bookstore. An attendance sheet will be passed out each day.

Participation Grade: Part of your grade will be based on your participation. This will be based partly on the LT activity pages that will be collected; they are graded on an all-or-nothing basis. There will also be some online Discussion Board assignments in Blackboard.

ABCD Voting Card: You will be expected to participate in class by "voting" for the correct answer in the multiple choice questions presented during lecture. To do this, print out the ABCD card. This is a PDF file; either print it in color and bring to class each day or put it on your smartphone to hold up and display in class. As with the LTs, these questions are designed to help you grasp the material, and will help you practice for the exams.

Assigned reading: Not all of the material you are expected to learn will be lectured on in class; some material is to be learned on your own through the assigned reading in the textbook, and in the online homeworks and quizzes. You will be tested on all the assigned material.

Presentations, youtube videos, supplemental material: Class lecture slides will be posted in the Blackboard shell, and there will be supplemental materials (Khan Academy videos, other youtube videos, simulations, etc.) posted to help you learn the material.

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HOMEWORK

The homework will be done using the online tutorial/homework on the MasteringAstronomy website. You must register for this course on the website (instructions are below).

To register on the website:

  • Purchase an access code for the 2nd edition of Cosmic Perspective Fundamentals (see Textbook information above).
  • Go MasteringAstronomy.com
  • Create a Pearson Education account if you have not used one of their products before.
    • You may use any login name you like and can remember
    • Enter your first name and last name as they appear in Panthersoft. This allows us to correlate your work in masteringastronomy with your work in Blackboard.
    • You may choose anything you like as your login id.
    • Use your Panther ID as your Student ID.
  • When you register, make sure you enter your email address correctly. If you forget your password, this is the email address that your password information will be sent to.

To access this semester's homework:

  • You must add this course to have full access to the assignments. To do this:
    • “Join” our course. The Course ID for this course is S16AST1002U02. It is case sensitive. I suggest you cut and paste it. You cannot edit this field after you record it, so please pay very careful attention to the code as shown here.
    • If you register but don't enter the course ID, you will not have access to the entire MasteringAstronomy website, including our specific assignments.

Online help for the MasteringAstronomy website: Online help is available under the Help tab on the website, and FAQs are available at www.masteringhelp.com . It includes the information about how to register.

Due dates: Assignments and due dates are in the Blackboard shell, and also listed in MasteringAstronomy.

Late work: You will lose 5% each day an assignment is late. On MasteringAstronomy, this means that after 8 days, you will lose 40% so your homework grade will be below passing; and after 20 days, you will get zero credit.

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Online Quizzes

10% of your grade will be based on the the Quizzes at MasteringAstronomy. They are multiple choice, and conducted in a tutorial fashion: you are prompted to try another answer if you get one wrong. There is a small deduction for each wrong answer. Hints are available; there is a bonus for each unopened hint however.

Late Quizzes: As with homework assignments, you will lose 5% each day after the due date; so after 20 days, you will get zero credit for the quiz.

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EXAMS

There will be four non-cumulative, multiple-choice exams given in class. Each exam will be multiple choice and will cover the material from the assigned readings and the lectures. Use your LT workbook to help you study and review your online homework and quizzes in MasteringAstronomy. well.

In addition to the four in-class exams, there will also be an optional, cumulative final exam which may be used to replace one of the four in-class exams. If you take all four in-class exams and the final, I will drop the lowest of your five exam grades. This means that if you miss one of the four in-class exams, you MUST take the final. Each of the four exams that are used is worth 20% of your grade. There will be no make-up exams for any reason.

If you have a conflict and cannot take an exam on the scheduled day, let me know ahead of time and we can arrange an alternative test date.

FINAL EXAM: Our final exam is scheduled for Friday, May 6 from 12:00pm-2:00pm. This is the last day of finals (sorry, I don't make this schedule). Do not make travel plans that conflict with this if you plan to take the final. It will not be given early.

IF YOU ARRIVE MORE THAN 20 MINUTES LATE FOR AN EXAM, OR AFTER ANYONE HAS FINISHED THE EXAM AND LEFT, YOU MAY NOT TAKE IT.

Anyone caught cheating on an exam or talking after the exams have been handed out will fail the course and be referred to the authorities.

The exams are closed book; no notes.

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GRADING

Your grade for the course is based on the average of your homework grades, Quiz grades, and your exam grades as shown here:

Course Requirements
Weights
MasteringAstronomy Homework
25%
MasteringAstronomy Quizzes
10%
Participation
5%
Exams
60%
Total
100%

Letter Grade
Range
Letter Grade
Range
Letter Grade
Range
   A  
93 –100
   B-
80 – 82
   D+
67 – 69
   A-
90 – 92
    C+
77 – 79
   D  
63 – 66
    B+
87 – 89
  C
73 – 76
   D-
60 – 62
  B
83 – 86
   C-
70 – 72
  F
< 59

Grades are available on the MasteringAstronomy website, not in Blackboard.

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DISABILITY NOTICE

I understand that there is a Disability Resource Center available to me should I need it. It is my responsibility to contact them to process my request to have my needs met. I need to follow their procedures as to proper notification to the instructor.

RULES, POLICIES, and ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT

Assignments from the text and other resources are listed below for each class session. Students are expected to pace their learning according to the posted course assignments.

Statement of Understanding between Professor and Student

Every student must respect the right of all to have an equitable opportunity to learn and honestly demonstrate the quality of their learning. Therefore, all students must adhere to a standard of academic conduct, demonstrating respect for themselves, their fellow students, and the educational mission of the University. As a student taking this class:
  • I will not represent someone else’s work as my own
  • I will not cheat, nor will I aid in another’s cheating
  • I will be honest in my academic endeavors
  • I understand that if I am found responsible for academic misconduct, I will be subject to the academic misconduct procedures and sanctions as outlined in the Student Handbook
Failure to adhere to the guidelines stated above may result in one of the following:
Expulsion: Permanent separation of the student from the University, preventing readmission to the institution. This sanction shall be recorded on the student's transcript.
Suspension: Temporary separation of the student from the University for a specific period of time.
Failing the course with an F0 grade: An F0 grade is assigned for failure to complete more than 60% of the course. This grade is permanent and may not be removed from a student’s transcript.
By taking this course I promise to adhere to FIU’s Student Code of Academic Integrity.

For details on the policy and procedure go to ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT.

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