PHYS 171 PHYSICAL SCIENCE

Summer 2013 Supplemental Syllabus & Course Information

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. --T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding (Four Quartets)

ABOUT THIS COURSE Instructor: Sarah Reynolds Contact info: sreynolds@neosho.edu (main), sjoryn@gmail.com (backup) phone: (785)371-4898 (home), (316)210-8684 (cell) Textbook: Physical Science, by Bill W. Tillery, 9th edition, McGrawHill Publishers. Welcome to Physical Science! In this course you will learn: - the basics of what we know and understand about our physical world, in the areas of physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and meteorology - essential features of scientific method and measurement - how to write a good scientific explanation - how to use and solve algebraic equations for physical science problems - and more! Tentative Course Schedule and Text References: Week 1: Chapters 1 and 2 (Scientific Foundations and Motion) Week 2: Chapters 3 and 4 (Energy and Heat) Week 3: Chapters 5, 6 and 7 (Waves, Electricity, and Light) Test 1 Week 4: Chapters 8 and 9 (Atoms and Chemical Bonds) Week 5: Chapters 10 and 11 (Chemical Reactions, Water and Solutions) Test 2 Week 6: Chapters 14, 15, 16 (Astronomy, Earth as a Planet) Week 7: Chapters 17, 18, 19 (Geology and Climate) Week 8: Final Exam COURSE COMPONENTS Textbook, Lectures, Lesson Guides, and Lesson Quizzes: Lesson Guides and short Powerpoint lectures are provided to help you work through the material for this course. The Lesson Guides are intended to help you work through each textbook chapter and helpful additional supplemental material available online or provided by the instructor. These guides assigned in this class are selected/designed to help you interactively solidify your learning, but you will not submit the guides themselves for a grade. Rather, after you have

worked through that lessons guide, you will take a short online Lesson Quiz to test your knowledge and understanding of the material. (You must also participate in the Discussion Forum assignments for each lesson, described below.) To allow you some flexibility and encourage you to develop your own academic discipline and time management skills, the lessons will be assigned on a week-by-week basis. All Lesson Quizzes for a given week must be turned in by 10 pm on the closing Monday of the week for which they are assigned. You are strongly encouraged to complete the lessons and Lesson Quizzes earlier in the week -- DO NOT wait until the last moment to attempt these. Late quizzes may be completed up to a week late with a 10% penalty in score for each day late. Online Forum Postings & Discussions: As part of each Lesson, you should complete an assigned Forum posting. These will ask you to think about and maybe research some question and to post your answer on the class discussion board. Frequently, you will also be instructed to respond to other students postings on the topic. Postings should make a substantive contribution to the discussion, according to the guidelines explained on the Class Forum pages. Your original posts and responses will be graded on the basis of quality and participation. These postings help you to build connections with other students in the online class and to further think through what you are learning. As in any other learning environment, your interaction with other students in these online discussions should be appropriate and professional. Vulgar, cruel, or otherwise offensive commentary will NOT be tolerated. Participation: A portion of your final grade will be given based on participation in the class. Since this is an online class, you are counted as attending for every week in which you submit a Lesson Quiz or Forum Posting OR contact the instructor to explain the situation preventing you from attending that week. Participation points will be awarded based on your submission of assigned quizzes and your completion of assigned online forum postings. Tests & Exam: In addition to the individual Lesson Quizzes, there will be two unit exams and a comprehensive final exam. These tests are designed to test both your knowledge of the material covered AND your ability to apply that knowledge. Grading: Your final grade is calculated as follows: Lesson Quizzes (1 lowest score will be dropped): 40% Discussion Forum Postings: 20% Participation: 10% Unit Exams and Final Exam: 30%

COURSE POLICIES Academic Honesty in this class: All work submitted for a grade MUST be your own original work. You are welcome to use online resources and/or discussions with other students to help you understand concepts and material better, but your answer should be in your own words and not copied from any source. If you are consulting outside sources (a website, book, etc.) to help with your answer, that source should be cited. Not all information is necessarily reliable, so this helps me to know if you may be using some confusing or misleading source. Whenever an outside source is directly quoted, the quote MUST be marked by quotation marks or italics and its source properly acknowledged. Any work or portion of a work which violates this policy will be assigned a zero. Lesson Quizzes and Exams should be taken on your own, but you may consult the textbook, the Lesson Guides, and online sources (keep in mind thought that the quizzes are timed). Class questions, contacting the Instructor: As instructor, I am available as a resource to help you in this class and will be actively engaging the material along with the rest of the class. For individual questions or concerns, I can also be easily and quickly reached through my NCCC e-mail address sreynolds@neosho.edu, or my outside e-mail address sjoryn@gmail.com. It can be more difficult to reach me by phone, but if you cannot reach me at (316)210-8684, then leave a message at (785)371-4898 and I will return your call as soon as I am available to talk. I am also glad to make arrangements to talk to you online through the course chat portal or another online chat program (Skype, AIM, Gchat). Please feel free to contact me whenever you are have further questions about a topic or are having any difficulty with the course content or online system.