PRINT THIS PAGE NOW!
The following topics are covered in this syllabus:
Overview
Contacting Me
The Online System
Required Course Materials
Course Goals
KEY Course Policies
Exams
Quizzes & Participation
Homework
Grading Policy
Extra Credit
Hints for Success
Constellations
Astronomy 10 Online Home Page |
Course Calendar
Course Web Page:
http://clpccd.blackboard.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overview of the Astro10 Online Course Syllabus (with more
details below!)
Course Topics: An introduction
to the history and physical principles of astronomy, focusing on our Solar
System, including our view of the heavens, historical development of
scientific models of the sky, light, telescopes, contents, properties,
formation and evolution of the solar system including the sun, planets, moons,
asteroids, meteors, and comets, and the possibilities for life in space.
Prerequisites: None. No Mathematics.
Graduation/Transfer Credit: 3 semester units of physical
science that meets GE requirements for Associates Degrees, and transfers to UC,
CSU, and most other four-year universities. A 1-unit companion lab, Astro30,
may be taken subsequently, in Autumn or Spring semesters, which satisfies
science laboratory transfer requirements to UC and CSU.
Instructor: Dr. Billy Smith (bsmith@chabotcollege.edu)
Contact information is noted below.
Required on-campus meetings: None. The course will be
available online 24x7 from the start of the Fall Semester (08/17/09) through
the end (12/18/09). You are never required to be online on a certain day or at
a certain time. You are required to login and post at least twice each week to
one of the discussion forums, but you can choose when you do that, and
obviously from where you want to work. You are required to have access to a
working, reliable computer with the capability to connect to the internet.
Exams: Two hour exams and one final exam, offered online. Each may be taken once anytime within a one-week "window", depending upon your own schedule and preferences. Exams will consist of multiple-choice questions and fill in the blank questions.
Quizzes: There will be one multiple-choice quiz of
about 20 questions for each chapter we read. Each chapter quiz may be taken
twice; the second score will be used for grading purposes. Each quiz will be
available to take anytime (24x7) within a window to match the reading
assignments from our textbook. You should plan on taking approximately one
quiz each week. Once a deadline is passed, the quizzes for that unit will not
be available again. Missed quizzes cannot be made up.
Homework: Fill in the blank questions in ASTRONOMY
ILLUSTRATED CD must be completed and then the answers to the questions must be
typed into the proper homework assignment page in Blackboard.
Grading:
Homework 15%, Participation:
15%, Online Quizzes: 20%; Online Tutorials: 10%; First Hour Exam 10%, Second
Hour Exam 10% Final Exam: 20%. You cannot pass this class with a grade of C or
higher without regular, substantial participation online through weekly
posting.
Textbook: The Essential Cosmic Perspective
(5th edition) by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, & Voit. Pearson (2009). Also
Required: Blackboard/Mastering Astronomy Access PIN code for The Cosmic
Perspective, available for free IF you purchase a new book in the Chabot
Bookstore, or, available for about $27 online from the publisher if you
purchase a used book or have a different book from a friend, previous class,
or other source.
Supplementary Book:
ASTRONOMY ILLUSTRATED (CD) is required and is available at the
Chabot Bookstore. Be sure to register your copy to insure credit for
completing the homework from the CD. Registration is required to receive
credit for homework.
Star Guide: A Star & Planet Locator (or "Planisphere");
numerous options for these are available.
Contacting Me!
E-mail: bsmith@chabotcollege.edu
Virtual Office Hour for Fall 2009: Mondays 9:00 -
10:00 am.
The only way to communicate with me is by email.
Email: Please use the internal mail system of our
Blackboard course tool to send me mail. Click on the "Email Tools!" button in
the navigation bar. Alternatively, if the course system is ever unavailable or
you have problems, please feel free to email me directly at my campus address:
bsmith@chabotcollege.edu.
Crucial, Important Note: ALL email sent to my campus
address MUST include a clear subject line that includes "Astro 10 Online".
Without this subject line, your email may be treated by our campus system as
SPAM, and may be automatically deleted without being received. It is your
responsibility to ensure that email sent to my outside ID is clearly labeled.
Office Hours:
Since our course is online, you will be able to communicate with me by email.
I will check email multiple times every day, and I will answer your emails as
soon as possible.
If you ever have problems logging into or using Blackboard,
please fill out the online help request form available at the Chabot College
Distance Education site:
http://www.chabotcollege.edu/DistanceEd/ Remember that you can always use
our default Blackboard userid of "astronomystudent" and password of "student"
to access the system. If you post or send messages with this ID, be sure to
include your name.
The Online Course System
This entire class is delivered and facilitated through
Blackboard, an online course system. You must have an access code for this
course that is individual and tied to your name. You may decide to interact
completely through the online system, and maintain anonymity through the login
ID, but for grading you must provide me with your full name (first and last)
and student W-number or Social Security Number.
All work will be done with Blackboard; you will use it for
posting questions and answers via the discussion boards, posting homework
assignments, taking some quizzes, accessing online lecture material, and
taking exams. Some of the material we'll use, including some outstanding
online tutorials, will be delivered via the publisher's MasteringAstronomy
website. Self-study questions in ASTRONOMY ILLUSTRATED CD must be completed and
then typed into Blackboard in the homework section. Complete instructions are
contained in the Read Me section of the ASTRONOMY ILLUSTRATED CD.
Blackboard provides a private message system that will
allow you and I to communicate, as well as you and others in the class. This
is how I prefer to communicate with you during the class - you can never lose
messages or have them blocked by spam filters, and they are available
anywhere, anytime, as long as you can log into Blackboard.
If you ever need to email me outside of Blackboard, you
MUST include a clear SUBJECT message in your email, and your name, to ensure
that your email will not be treated as "SPAM" and automatically deleted. Send
your homework with a subject line ("Astro 10 Online - Your Name" would work
well! It is your responsibility to
ensure that your email is clearly and appropriately labeled.
If you find that Blackboard and the online system does not
meet your needs, or if technical problems prevent you from interacting
regularly, you may inquire about moving to a traditional on-campus section, if
space is available and the times meet your schedule. Astronomy 10 is being
taught on campus on MW 10:30-11:45 AM or W 6:30 –9:20 PM and Astro20
on-campus MW 1:30 –2:45 PM or TTH 10:30 - 11:45 AM. Both the online and the
on-campus Astronomy sections use the same textbooks. You should be able to
transfer between the two sections before the end of the first 4 weeks of Fall
term.
You should use Blackboard's extensive help facilities online, as well as the Blackboard Student manual, to assist you with the course system.
Required Texts & Materials:
1. Textbook
The preferred textbook for our course is Bennett's The
Essential Cosmic Perspective 5th. edition (2009) from Addison
Wesley-Benjamin Cummings, ISBN: 978-0-8053-9392-7.
The book is available from the Chabot College Bookstore
(about $120, new) bundled with other materials. IF YOU PURCHASE THE BOOK NEW
in the bookstore, you will receive the required online access code to
MasteringAstronomy (PIN) FREE.
If you purchase a used book online, or borrow a book, you will still need the online Blackboard/Mastering Astronomy PIN code, which you can purchase from the publisher online at http://session.masteringastronomy.com/myct?productID=bennett4. (Make sure you obtain the Mastering Astronomy PIN code for "The Essential Cosmic Perspective, 5th edition.)
To save money, you might also look for a slightly older
combined Astro 10/Astro 20 version, The Cosmic Perspective (3rd edition) by
the same authors, ISBN: 0-8053-8738-2 or 0-8053-9201-7, published in 2005.
That book will be acceptable as well, and you might be able to find a used
copy online for much less (check out Amazon.com). Another acceptable version
would be The Cosmic Perspective: The Solar System (3rd edition), 2005, ISBN:
0-8053-9202-5 which is a subset that includes the material we'll discuss in
our class. Note that used books will NOT have the
online access code.
If you purchase a used book, or
an older version of the text, you will also need a Blackboard/Mastering
Astronomy online course access code (PIN). You can purchase one for ~$27
online on the MasteringAstronomy web site. http://masteringastronomy.com.
2) ASTRONOMY ILLUSTRATED (CD).
This CD is available in the bookstore. When you open up this CD on your computer, be sure to register your copy by sending the required information in an email to: bonneausmithpublishers@yahoo.com. You will be completing some of the self-study questions and then typing the answers in the homework section of Blackboard. You must download Adobe Reader in order to view the CD. I recommend that you download the latest version of Adobe Reader. This CD is basically an illustrated dictionary of astronomical terms arranged by typical topics covered in an introductory astronomy course.
3) A Star Locator
You will need ONE "Star & Planet Locator", also known as a
"Planisphere". You have numerous options for this; you only need to find a
star guide that allows you to set a particular date and time for viewing the
sky. Choose whatever one is most convenient and affordable for you.
Edmund Scientific (preferred); paper, approximately $2.95,
available from the Chabot College Bookstore and Edmund Scientific
(800-728-6999) and online at www.scientificsonline.com; stock# CR30092-27, in
Astronomy - Celestial Models and Guides.
Miller Planisphere; plastic, 10", SD-302, approximately
$12.95, available from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (800) 335-2624
and online at from the store directed by the ASP, at
http://www.astrosociety.org/index.html; in Observing Aids.
Orion Star Target Planisphere; plastic and light cardboard,
10", approximately $10, available from Orion Telescope & Binoculars
(800-447-1001) and online at www.telescope.com; stock# 04110 in Planispheres.
Course Goals
Astronomy 10 is a course about our universe, and about
science. In this online education format, you will be learning about astronomy
on the web, taking advantage of some outstanding tutorials produced by the
publisher to compliment our textbook.
Our course starts with information about our sky, shared by
everyone on the planet, and discusses natural astronomical phenomena that
affect us or are visible from Earth. We'll talk about the phases of the Moon,
the reason for seasons, eclipses, tides; we'll also discuss light and
telescopes, and then tackle our solar system. We'll spend the second half of
the course exploring what we have learned, and what there still is left to
discover, about the planets, satellites, asteroids, meteors, and comets in our
solar system, and how we are learning about other solar systems beyond our
own.
In parallel with observing and describing objects, we will
be learning how science works, and who does science. I hope to help you gain
an appreciation for just how many things in our lives today are related to the
science of astronomy.
This Astronomy 10 class satisfies the General Education
requirements for physical sciences, and in its distance education format, is
just as challenging as the on-campus class. The course transfers 3 physical
science lecture semester units to all CSU and UC campuses. No mathematics is
required, and there are no prerequisites. An optional lab class, Astronomy 30,
may be taken concurrently or at any time after successfully completing this
class. The science lab units, along with the 3 lecture units, apply to the
science transfer requirements for most 4-year institutions. (Usually all that
is needed in addition to these courses is another 3-unit lecture class in the
biological science.)
Grading and Important Course
Policies
Overall Course Weight:
Ten Homework Assignments (15%)
Discussion Post Participation
(A very important part of the course!). 15%
Ten Chapter Quizzes (20%)
14 Online Tutorials (10%)
First Hour Exam (10%)
Second Hour Exam (10%)
Final Exam (20%)
Extra Credit Options Up to 5% maximum from all sources
You must post a question on the
Discussion Board each week by Thursday evening at 11:55 pm and post at least
two responses to other student’s questions of approximately 50 words to the
appropriate Discussion Forum on or before the deadline Sundays, at 11:55 PM
Pacific Time. The questions and responses will be evaluated on a point basis
with the maximum of 10 points for your posting each week. Very short questions
and short responses will receive fewer points. You cannot achieve an "A" or
"B" grade in this class without consistent, active participation.
Late homework assignments receive no credit.
All homework assignments will require you typing in answers
into the proper homework assignment in Blackboard.
The Mastering Astronomy
Tutorials (available at http://session.masteringastronomy.com/myct?productID=bennett4)
are fantastic, and are the most important reason this particular book was
chosen for our course. They are required, and you will need a Mastering
Astronomy access code to login to the system so that your work can be tracked.
Our Mastering Astronomy Course ID is "ONLINEASTRO10FALL2009". You'll need to
enter this ID when you login the first time so that you can get credit for
your work. More about accessing Mastering Astronomy, and how to get credit for
the tutorials, is available online.
The Chapter Quizzes include objective and sometimes
short-answer questions from the textbook. Each quiz may be taken twice, and
the most recent score will be kept for grading purposes. They are obviously
open-book. I encourage you to ask questions in the online discussion forum
about what you don't understand after taking a quiz the first time, before
taking it for the second and final attempt. For each quiz, you must take and
complete it by the assigned due dates (again, Thursday or Sunday nights at
11:55 PM Pacific Time.) Quizzes will not be available after that deadline, and
cannot be made-up. If you know you must miss a quiz deadline in advance,
contact me.
In addition to assignment
posts, you are encouraged to ask questions about the quizzes, or about what
you see in the night sky, or about what you might hear, see, or read in the
media regarding astronomy. Sharing questions and comments, resources and
information will make the class much more enjoyable for everyone.
There will be opportunities for extra credit to help your
overall grade. There will be a few options on the homework assignments (online
papers, research projects, answering textbook questions, completing extra
quizzes) to fit your style of learning best.
Grading will be based on
percentages attained. Historically overall percentages of 90% and higher earn
an A, 80% - 89% earn a B, about 70% - 79% earn a C and from 60%-69% earn a D.
If you put in the effort, and participate actively in class, you should do
well. Missing participation and late work will certainly hurt your grade.
Please Note! Because online classes might be very new to
some of you, you may find that it takes you more than a week to "get
comfortable" with the course and how to learn most effectively for you. BE
PATIENT with yourself. If this is your first online course, set a goal of
first learning to use the course system to post discussion thoughts, and to
access the course material in the Content Area. If you have difficulty with
Blackboard, you will not have much time before the class will get away from
you.
I strongly encourage those of you that are new to Blackboard to attend a 60-minute Online Learning Orientation this semester in Room 301. Times for these will be published at the beginning of the semester.
Key Course Policies - Online
Participation, Makeup Exams, and Dropping the Class
1) Online Participation
First, this is One of most important parts of an online
course, and the one piece you cannot skip and still pass. You must actively
participate weekly in our discussions; failure to post more for two weeks will
be cause to DROP you from the course.
Second, I expect all online participation and discussion
postings to be constructive and respectful, just as though you were in an
on-campus class. Flaming others in our class, posting inappropriate materials
or links, or other non-collegial behavior will not be tolerated, and you will
be removed from the class. Please review your rights and responsibilities as
students in the current version of the Chabot College Catalog and Student
Handbook.
2) Makeup Exams & Quizzes
There are NO makeup exams or quizzes if you fail to take
the assessment during the open window of time when it is offered, unless you
have discussed other options with me in advance and received my OK to
reschedule. Waiting until the last day or so during the open exam window and
then discovering or deciding that you can't take a test will not be accepted
as a valid reason to delay. Nor will waiting until the last day and finding
your computer or internet connection doesn't work.
3) Dropping the Class & Taking
an Incomplete
If you decide that the online course is not for you, you
must email me as well as submit a "DROP" card to Chabot College (which can be
done online). Failure to notify me of your decision means you risk receiving a
failing grade. And I want to know whether there is anything I can do to help
you overcome the difficulties you might be facing, or how we might look at the
course system or material together.
If you find that you will not be able to complete all of
the course material by our last week, don't worry. As long as you and I
discuss the situation by email BEFORE THE LAST WEEK OF CLASS, and we
agree formally via email (in writing), you may opt for a "formal" incomplete,
and finish the class in Spring 2010, either via online, or on-campus.
In other words, I want you to be successful, and if we work
together, we should be able to find a way to help you complete all of the work
at the required standards of excellence to achieve full credit. Please note,
however, that:
If you do not contact me ahead of time, and we do not
agree in writing (by email), you will NOT be able to opt for the incomplete,
and you WILL receive whatever grade you have earned at the time
If you are not doing well in
the class, opting for an incomplete will NOT change your earlier grades, nor
allow you to go back to work already submitted. This is not meant to be a
self-paced class where you work through material repeatedly until you get
everything right.
Exams
Exams will include mostly multiple choice questions and
fill-in-the-blank questions, addressing material from the textbook, online
resources, and homework. Online exams are open book. However, your time will
be limited.
Online students will be expected to start and finish an
exam in one period. Online exams can be taken only once. Problems with online
course systems that might occur during an exam will not release you from your
responsibility to take the test. For example, your Internet Provider might
lose access, or your computer might crash, or the power might go out, or a
family emergency might occur. Things happen, and we'll deal with problems with
the intent to reach a fair and reasonable solution, as long as you have not
waited until the last moment to take the exam. However IF problems occur
during an online exam you must:
Contact me immediately by email
(if you have access) at
bsmith@chabotcollege.edu AND
If you are unable to send me an email when you first experience problems with an online exam, you must
contact a friend or colleague who must leave me a message in the above
formats. In other words, it is your responsibility to either take and complete
the exam in one period, or to notify me before or while the exam is in
progress. If you notify me after an exam that you have missed it, you will
receive zero credit. Treat an exam like an interview for a job you really
want. If you miss the interview or are late, without calling, you won't get
the job. Here, you won't get the credit.
If you prefer to take exams in more traditional formats,
and you live close to Chabot, you may be able to take them on-campus. This
option is NOT guaranteed! You must take the exam during the same window of
availability as our online class, and you must notify me that you want this
option so that we can determine a time on-campus when you are able to visit. A
BLUE BOOK and picture ID is required, and will be checked. Blue books are
available in the campus bookstore. If you take the exams on-campus:
On-campus exams are completely closed book, with no notes
allowed. Any use of additional study aids or borrowing answers from others
during a test is not acceptable, and will result in, at minimum, a failing
grade for the exam and possibly for the course.
PLEASE NOTE: If you notify me before an exam that you will
be unable to complete the test during the assigned times, we may be able to
work out a make-up date. But if you miss an exam without some advance warning
to me, or you wait until the last day and find a problem with your computer or
internet provider stops you from completing the test, you will not be able to
take a make-up test, and your grade on the test will be a zero. There are no
exceptions to this policy.
Quizzes & Participation
The online course system has some useful objective quizzes
for each chapter to help you study. The quizzes are available in the QUIZZES
& EXAMS area, within each chapter folder. Trying these quizzes will help you
test your mastery of key concepts, and they should help you prepare for the
exams. You will receive credit for each of the quizzes you complete. You can
take each quiz TWICE; the better of the two grades will be kept. Target dates
for quiz completion are noted in the online calendar.
DO NOT worry tremendously about your grades on the chapter
quizzes the first time you try them. The BEST technique to help you with the
quizzes is to:
a) READ the book, at least once.
b) Take the online quiz
corresponding to that chapter in the Reading & Homework area of our online
class. After completing the quiz, you'll be able to see what you missed (but
NOT see what the "correct" answers were - that would making taking them the
second time a bit too easy! :)
c) Review what you missed immediately. If you think you
understand the correct answers, retake the quiz!
d) If you don't understand what you missed, after
re-reading the book, then ASK QUESTIONS in the discussion area.
e) Take the quiz a second time before the required
completion date.
Attendance Requirements
Our online class meets for 17 weeks during the fall
semester. If you are pre-registered and do not post to the class discussion
board or email me by the end of the first Thursday of class (Thursday,
08/20/09), you may be dropped to make room for people wanting to add the
class. (This is consistent with the policy for on-campus classes. If a
student misses either of the first two meetings of a class on campus,
instructors may drop these students from the class.)
Remember, you must post something to the online discussion
boards at least twice every week during the term. Even if you aren't able to
complete an assignment, you can still read and respond to the posts of others,
or post questions about the quizzes, or share information from the media, or
ask about what is in the sky. If you fail to post the homework or class
discussion board for two consecutive weeks without prior notification to me,
you may be dropped. If you will be unable to post or participate for a
particular session, please notify me.
Homework
Because this class does not include weekly class meetings
like normal on-campus classes, you need to do much more learning on your own
to succeed. A list of the weekly assignments is available in the Assignments
Area, and the dates for the homework are clearly indicated on Blackboard
Assignments Area AND the online calendar. For all weekly assignments, you are
expected to post your own contribution to the questions asked by Thursday or
Sunday night at 11:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time, AND to respond substantially
to the posts of at least two other classmates.
Assignments typically include:
- Participation, Opinion, Survey, and Research
Questions: Your answers to these questions will be posted in the weekly
discussion forums, and you are asked to comment substantively on the postings
of at least two others in the class for full credit. These are meant to
provide opportunities for you to discuss what we are learning with friends and
family members, co-workers, and fellow students. There are no right or wrong
answers, but you will receive credit for good, thorough, scholarly work and
will lose credit for incomplete or late work.
-ASTRONOMY ILLUSTRATED CD:
Self-study questions in ASTRONOMY ILLUSTRATED CD must be
completed and then typed into Blackboard in the homework section.
Complete instructions are contained in the Read Me section of the ASTRONOMY
ILLUSTRATED CD.
- Planet, Sky, Constellation, and Star activities:
Much of the fun of our on-campus classes comes from learning the
constellations and stars with the wonderful Chabot College Planetarium. We
can't do that with our online class, but there are still lots of things we can
do to help you learn the names and locations of the stars and planets in our
sky. I'll sometimes ask you to use your star and planet locator to learn
seasonal constellations, to learn about planet positions, to learn about
meteor showers, and other special sights.
-
Tutorial Assessments:
The main reason I chose this textbook for our online class is that the
publisher has provided some outstanding tutorials at MasteringAstronomy for
you to use. The Mastering Astronomy website can automatically track your
progress through the tutorials, as long as you follow the directions for
submitting your work properly. Note that your work within the tutorials is
graded - but what is most important is that you spend time using them to learn
the material. Students in past classes have said that these online tutorials
are - in some cases - much better than the textbook, and that the interactive
aspects really made a positive difference in their learning.
In essence, the tutorials replace much of the on-campus
lectures, where I would typically demonstrate concepts like seasons or
spectroscopy with in-class activities.
Extra Credit:
In addition to the required homework elements, I'll always
provide additional questions and activities for you to consider when
completing the homework:
- Questions from the Textbook that you are strongly
recommended to answer. Turning in your answers is optional; answers will not
be graded. If desired, you may (and are encouraged to) work in groups of two
or three, and turn in one paper for the group. Note: Even though these
textbook questions may be optional, there is probably no better way for you to
check your understanding of important material than actually writing out the
answers, to help you prepare for the exams.
- Online Search and Evaluation Assignments take advantage
of the Internet's amazing storehouse of information about Astronomy. You will
have the option of locating at least 2 different online resources for each
weekly topic, and posting their URLs as well as a critique of their value.
- Online Papers and Projects that allow you to investigate
an aspect of the class beyond what is presented in the textbook, and present
to the class your research. You may opt to write a paper (with references and
a bibliography, always) or create a web-page project. You can post your work
for the class to view; email me or contact me for information about how to
accomplish this on our Blackboard system.
Late Work:
Late homework will not be accepted. I encourage you to do
the work, though, so even if you must miss an assignment, please consider
turning it in for some extra credit. Note that Extra Credit can be done any
time, and is never "late"!
Academic Integrity:
Note that for ALL assignments and extra credit, you are
expected to cite any outside resources (including articles, books, and
websites) appropriately. Work that does not include a citation will earn zero
points. I expect everything turned in to be original, and any material copied,
paraphrased, or cited to receive proper credit. Be sure to use quotation
marks, and note references. Copying material from the text or other sources
without giving a reference is not acceptable. I want to know what you think,
not what someone else thought!
If you use the Internet to
assist with assignments and extra credit, you must include the URL, the
universal resource locator, that identifies the sources in your work cited
lists, but also at a minimum, you must include the name of the site, the
author if known, the date the site was created, the institution or
organization hosting the site (the publisher), the date you accessed the site,
and the URL:
Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett. Apr.
1997. Indiana U. Accessed: 26 Apr. 2000. .
Citation styles for all work often follow the MLA style; a
handout about this style for web resources is available online. For more
information about scholarly citation expectations, check out the Chabot
College Library handouts for work cited pages online.
Additional Extra Credit
There will be numerous opportunities for extra credit to
help your homework and midterm grades. Get in the habit of scanning the
newspaper, magazines, and even television for items related to astronomy. If
you come across something of interest, do some research in the library, and
turn in a short review of the item, including its significance to you, and its
value as a handout for the rest of the class. There is no restriction on the
topic, as long as there is some sort of connection to astronomy. Topics could
be about politics (NASA and/or government spending on space exploration and
research), global climatic changes (the ozone hole and/or the greenhouse
effect), science fiction, aliens, etc. There is no restriction on the topic,
as long as there is some sort of connection to astronomy. I will scale the
extra credit to the amount of effort you put into your review or paper, up to
a maximum of 5%.
Extra Credit may be turned in anytime; even though each
homework assignment lists extra credit ideas, you are not required to turn in
your submissions the following week. All extra credit is due by the last
Thursday of regular classes 12/17/09.
Please note: Extra credit
earned will help towards your homework/quiz grades exam grades. It will not
make up for missing or failing an exam, nor will it substitute for your
participation.
Constellations
One of the only significant differences between this online
class and the on-campus or telecourse offerings is how you will learn
constellations. Online, we'll use online tools to simulate the stars. I will offer lessons on how to use your star and
planet locator, and I hope to help you learn the brightest stars above you
this autumn. But if you can visit a local planetarium, you will find
that you can learn the sky much better.