Spring Semester - 2009, 6:30 – 9:00 T, Nicholson Hall 275
LECTURER: Kent Kirkby, 103 Pillsbury Hall, 624-1392 (voice mail), e-mail: kirkby@umn.edu
OFFICE HOURS: Call or email to set up a time (anytime!)
Lab Manual:(GEO 1001 students only) Available only at the University Bookstore in Coffman Memorial Union in the same area as the lecture texts. You must pick up the lab manual before the first lab. Labs do NOT meet until Monday, Jan. 26!Posted Lecture Notes:Optional copies of lecture overheads with space for writing notes. These are NOT full lecture notes but essentially extended lecture outlines. These have been highly recommended by past students. They will be posted on the web site before class.
Grades will be based on lab, biweekly (every other week) quizzes and a comprehensive final quiz. Quizzes will be short (25 minute) closed-book exams that cover material from lecture and text. Although group work is encouraged for preparing for the quizzes, the quizzes themselves must be completed individually as independent work.
Breakdown of course grade:GEO 1001:
GEO 1101:Biweekly and Final quizzes 65%
Lab Component 35%
Biweekly and Final quizzes 100%
Note: The quizzes will be a combination of multiple choice, true/false, and figure questions. Only the best 5 of 7 scores will count towards your course grade. The comprehensive final quiz is mandatory, CANNOT be dropped, but is only weighted the same as each of the biweekly quizzes. The comprehensive final quiz, along with the last biweekly quiz, will be given during the final exam period. Last Biweekly & Final quizzes will take place on Tuesday, May. 12, at 6:30 p.m. in Nicholson 275
With the sole exception of the GEO 1001 in-class laboratory assignments, all assignments in GEO 1001/1101 (such as lecture quizzes, lab quizzes or any extra-credit assignments) are expected to be completed individually. Scholastic misconduct is broadly defined as "any act that violates the right of another student in academic work or that involves misrepresentation of your own work. Scholastic dishonesty includes, (but is not necessarily limited to): cheating on assignments or examinations; plagiarizing, which means misrepresenting as your own work any part of work done by another; submitting the same paper, or substantially similar papers, to meet the requirements of more than one course without the approval and consent of all instructors concerned; depriving another student of necessary course materials; or interfering with another student's work." If you are uncertain as to what the University considers inappropriate behavior, please refer to the Regents’ Policy on Student Conduct found at: http://www1.umn.edu/regents/policies/academic/StudentConduct.html
Grades will be based on a class curve or university scale - whichever provides the more generous distribution of grades. The University uses intermediate grades (A-, B+, etc.). If you take the course on an S-N basis, University rule require that a 'S' must be equivalent to a 'C-' or better. Note that this means the bar is slightly higher for S/N students to pass the course than A/F students, so if you're worried about passing, A/F may be the better choice!
Posting of Grades
To let you check the validity of my grade records and correct any errors, I will include the ‘best 2 of 3’, 'best 3 of 4', ‘best 4 of 5’ and ‘best 5 of 6 ’ scores on the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th quizzes. If you miss one of these quizzes, please email me to get the update.
My apologies to the class rock hounds, but lectures will focus on processes and human interaction rather than minerals and rocks. The major course goals are to provide students with a better understanding of Earth Systems and the interaction of those systems with human society. To do this, an emphasis will be placed on the 'understanding' of geological processes, rather than factual information about geological processes. Consequently the quizzes will try to emphasize the use and interpretation of geological knowledge, rather than its simple recitation. You will have to know the meaning of some terms in order to do this, but relatively few questions will be on the definition of terms (unless I mess up completely).
Council on Liberal Education (CLE) Requirements:
Geo 1001 is designed to satisfy the CLE requirements as a physical science with lab and the environment theme. As a consequence, GEO 1001 will not just present a current understanding of the Earth, but will explicitly explore how that understanding came to be.
Studying the Earth’s surface and present geological processes are relatively straightforward, if exciting, pursuits but, how do we know anything of the Earth’s interior or of its nearly 4.6 billion year past? On a more fundamental level, how did our present understanding of the Earth originate? The ways our past and present views of the Earth were shaped by contemporaneous worldviews is one of the best demonstrations of science’s social nature and the scientific process. Throughout the course, we’ll examine how geological ideas were formulated and tested, and subsequently revised or replaced, as part of an ongoing exploration of our world.
Physical Science with Lab:
As stated above, the course’s goal is to not simply to present our current understanding of the Earth, but to explore the reasons why we believe this knowledge is correct. What distinctions exist between data, interpretation, hypothesis and theory? How do we gain and test new information at each step of a scientific investigation? As important, how can we learn to recognize what it is that we still need to discover?
Geology is uniquely suited to portray this process as Plate Tectonics, our discipline’s unifying theory, only arose within the past forty years. It is still in its early stages of development, so this is a remarkably exciting time to be involved in earth studies. Taking GEO 1001 this semester is comparable to taking a biology class only a few decades after Darwin’s theory of evolution provided a new perspective from which to view the subject. Although we can clearly test and demonstrate many plate tectonic processes, there still remains a great deal we do not know about how the Earth works.
One of the class’ other advantages is that, simply by living in the world, you already have an incredible amount of personal knowledge about the Earth. GEO 1001 is a wonderful opportunity to examine that knowledge, to gain new insights and skills in order to test and refine your ideas of how the Earth works, and to finally emerge with a better understanding of the dynamic nature of the Earth and its environments.
Environment Theme:
We live in a world that is an astonishingly complex integration of physical, biological and social systems. As humans, we have had a nearly unparalleled impact on these systems. Not since the rise of photosynthesis, has any organism had as pervasive an impact on the global environment as that of the ongoing development of agricultural and industrial societies. On a human time scale though, this impact is easily overlooked. Also easily overlooked, is the remarkable extent to which these same societies have themselves been shaped by the Earth systems they impact. This course attempts to create a more balanced and complete view of the place of human activities within the framework of their environment, in order to provide a better understanding of the intricate interactions between humans and their enveloping world.
Our understanding of these interactions and how we manage Earth’s resources and processes, will determine the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren. This course will explore many of the ways in which humans interact with earth systems, as well as the capability of earth systems to respond to human-induced changes. It will explicitly examine how earth systems and our use of earth resources have shaped our modern society, in hope of better understanding the possible future consequences of our present activities.
The course’s overall objective is nothing less than to provide you with a better understanding of the myriad interactions between human society and the environment so you can make informed decisions concerning your own place in a truly global society.
Geo 1001 is designed to satisfy the CLE requirements as a physical science with lab and the environment theme. As a consequence, GEO 1001 will not just present a current understanding of the Earth, but will explicitly explore how that understanding came to be.
Studying the Earth’s surface and present geological processes are relatively straightforward, if exciting, pursuits but, how do we know anything of the Earth’s interior or of its nearly 4.6 billion year past? On a more fundamental level, how did our present understanding of the Earth originate? The ways our past and present views of the Earth were shaped by contemporaneous worldviews is one of the best demonstrations of science’s social nature and the scientific process. Throughout the course, we’ll examine how geological ideas were formulated and tested, and subsequently revised or replaced, as part of an ongoing exploration of our world.
Physical Science with Lab:
As stated above, the course’s goal is to not simply to present our current understanding of the Earth, but to explore the reasons why we believe this knowledge is correct. What distinctions exist between data, interpretation, hypothesis and theory? How do we gain and test new information at each step of a scientific investigation? As important, how can we learn to recognize what it is that we still need to discover?
Geology is uniquely suited to portray this process as Plate Tectonics, our discipline’s unifying theory, only arose within the past forty years. It is still in its early stages of development, so this is a remarkably exciting time to be involved in earth studies. Taking GEO 1001 this semester is comparable to taking a biology class only a few decades after Darwin’s theory of evolution provided a new perspective from which to view the subject. Although we can clearly test and demonstrate many plate tectonic processes, there still remains a great deal we do not know about how the Earth works.
One of the class’ other advantages is that, simply by living in the world, you already have an incredible amount of personal knowledge about the Earth. GEO 1001 is a wonderful opportunity to examine that knowledge, to gain new insights and skills in order to test and refine your ideas of how the Earth works, and to finally emerge with a better understanding of the dynamic nature of the Earth and its environments.
Environment Theme:
We live in a world that is an astonishingly complex integration of physical, biological and social systems. A significant amount of the course content revolves around the interactions between geological processes, human society and the biosphere. The scope of geological time and the course’s global scale provide a unique perspective from which to explore this deeply integrated system. Throughout the course, the class examines the role of plate tectonics and surface processes in the development of present biotic communities and the ongoing evolution of human societies. In turn, human impacts on natural systems are explored through examination of river management projects, coastal development, ozone-depletion and human-induced climate change. This dual approach provides students with a strong appreciation of their role in a tightly integrated world and a knowledge base with which they can make more informed decisions about the interaction of human activities and natural systems.
The course’s overall objective is nothing less than to provide you with a better understanding of the myriad interactions between human society and the environment so you can make informed decisions concerning your own place in a truly global society.
If English is not your primary language and you would like to have additional time in which to take the exams, let me know. Anyone who needs additional time for the exams will be extended the same courtesy.
Attendance is not mandatory (although it helps!). If you have to arrive late or leave early, please try to avoid disrupting other students.
Please turn all cell phones off before coming to class. A ringing phone is almost impossible for others to ignore. Of course, medical conditions can override this request.
FOR GEO 1001 STUDENTS:
Don't dismiss the lab portion
of the course, nor rely on it for your grade. Because lab assignments are
completed as group work, lab grades tend to fall within a very narrow range.
Provided that you complete the lab portion of the course, your lecture quiz
scores tend to have a greater impact on your overall course grade. Historically,
the average lab grades fall between 30% and 31%, so earning a perfect score
in the lab (35%) can raise your course grade from a 'B' to a 'B+', or from an 'A-' to an 'A', but it will not raise
your grade by a full letter grade. On the other hand, skipping labs can significantly
lower your grade.