Instructor: Claia Bryja Preferred
E-mail: claia.bryja@mail.ccsf.edu
Office Phone: 415-452-5668
Website: http://fog.ccsf.edu/~cbryja/astro_16.html
Office
hours: Science Hall Rm. 400, Wednesdays: 1:00 PM until
3:00 PM
(These are open drop-in hours.
Any other time must be arranged by appointment in advance.)
You must buy:
A star finder chart (Chandler’s “Night
Sky”) available at the CCSF bookstore,
Lots of paper for writing
and drawing
(consider buying a notebook from which
the pages can be easily and neatly
removed).
I also strongly recommend that
you:
Bring a pencil and eraser to
class every day. (You will often want to
erase what you just wrote or make changes to a graph or a sketch you just
drew.)
Bring a calculator able to handle square roots and powers-of-ten notation.
Consider bringing an introductory
astronomy textbook as a secondary reference.
Course
Description: This is a “hands-on laboratory” course
designed to be taken after, or at the same time as, a three unit college-level
introductory astronomy course such as Astronomy 1, 17, 18, or 19. However, because this daytime section of the
course will not be able to do much observing of the sky (perhaps we will manage
to include a brief nighttime viewing at the beginning of the semester,
otherwise the best we can do is observe the Sun and the Moon in the daytime),
more of the exercises will be done with pencil and paper or with computers than
you or I would like.
We
will complete a different set of astronomy-related exercises at each of 16
class meetings. Students will work
either individually or (in just one or two cases) in assigned groups of three
or four. There also will be two short
exams on the content of the class exercises:
a midterm exam on March 13th and a final exam on May 15th.
At
times, this class may make use of the planetarium and/or observatory deck on
the 4th floor of the science building (which does not have elevator
service!). We will also make frequent
use of the computers in either Batmale Hall 301 or
Rosenberg Library 414, and (because our classroom is not always big enough) I
may move us into other rooms in order to complete certain special exercises. Unless stated otherwise in advance, we usually
will meet in Science Hall Room 311 for at least the first five minutes of
class. I will write a note on the
blackboard if we move to another room for the rest of the period, but please
read my lateness policy below! Please contact me as soon as possible if you
wish to discuss disability-related accommodation or if you have emergency
information that you need to share.
ASTR-16 credit may be transferred to all universities in the CSU and UC systems. However, some universities require students to take ASTR-1, 17, 18 or 19 in addition to this class in order to receive transfer credit.
Grading: There will be a total of 200 points worth of
exercises and exams (with some extra credit available in addition to that).
We
will complete a 2½-point exercise at the first class meeting (which all late-adding
students will be allowed to make up). On
most days thereafter, we will complete full-length lab exercises worth 10
points each. A 45-minute mid-term exam given on March 13th will be
worth 20 points, and a 75-minute final exam given May 15th will be
worth 30 points. The only other
special case is for the week of the mid-term exam, when we also will complete a
moderately shorter exercise worth just 7½ points.
When
grading the full-length laboratory exercises, I don’t like to quibble with a fifth
of a point here and a tenth of a point there.
I will return your papers with comments and a simple letter grade. My letter grades will translate into points
as follows: AA = 10.0 (The score
of AA is reserved only for truly exceptional, outstanding work!), A+ = 9.8, A = 9.5, A– = 9.2, B+ = 8.8, B = 8.5, B– = 8.2, C+ = 7.8, C
= 7.3, C– = 6.8, D+ = 6.2, D = 5.7, D– = 5.2, F+ = 4.5, F = 3.0, F– = 1.5, absent
= 0.0.
Your lowest full-length lab score
at the end of the semester will be replaced with your average score from the
other 14 full-length exercises. Zeros for absences will count fully when
this average is taken. In this way,
a total of 150 points will be possible from the lab exercises alone. (If the combined first day
exercise and post-mid-term-exam exercise scores total lower than any of the
full-length lab scores, then the sum of those two lesser scores will be
replaced with the average of all 14 full-length labs.)
Final
letter grades for the course will then be decided according to the following
guidelines:
A 90
% and up 180 – 200 points
B 80
% and up 160 – 179 points
C 65
% and up 130 – 159 points
D 50
% and up 100 – 139 points
F less
than 50 % 0 –
99 points
If your final score places you within three points of a borderline, I will consider your overall record when determining your grade.
Exams: The mid-term exam will consist of two
parts. Part I will test your familiarity
with constellations and night sky objects.
Part II will include many short questions about the concepts and
terminology that you will learn from the lab exercises. The final exam will also include a Part III
that will test your ability to read a table of data, to graph the results, and
to draw conclusions from that graph. I
will give you a detailed study guide to help you prepare for each exam.
If
you miss an exam, I will allow you to replace it with a different make-up exam only
if the reason for your absence was beyond your control, and if you inform me of
your situation as promptly as possible-- ideally even before the missed exam
happens. To treat all students the same,
I will always ask for supporting documentation to verify your excuse. Also, please understand that designing new
make-up exams costs me a lot of time and trouble, and the make-up might be
nothing like the exam that was missed.
Attendance policies: Because the lowest lab exercise score is
ignored, you might mistakenly believe that you can skip one exercise free of
any penalty or negative consequence.
However, please consider that the exams will include questions about all
of the exercises-- including any that you might have missed. This means that you will likely miss points
on the exams if you skip. Consider also
that if you are absent for a class, your poorest lab score will not be
replaced, while it will be replaced if you attend every class. It does hurt your grade if you miss a lab.
To
further encourage good attendance, I will give two bonus points of extra credit
to all students who never miss a class.
If
you must miss a class for a compelling reason beyond your control, and you can
provide documentary evidence of the excuse, I still will award one bonus point
of extra credit if you miss no other classes.
If you miss two or more exercises for compelling reasons beyond your
control, I will allow you to complete one or two make-up exercises; but you
must contact me immediately to explain your circumstances.
Consequences of lateness: If you are
late to class, you may miss important information that will leave you confused
about how to complete that day’s exercise.
This will be frustrating to both you and me. If you are very late, you may have to skip
parts of the exercise and take a zero for those parts that you missed. For exercises in which students have been
assigned to work together in groups, or if we are observing objects in the sky,
there will be no way to make up the missed parts. For example, we might begin an exercise by
observing the Sun through a telescope.
Once the telescope is put away, I will not set it up again. Finally, some activities may be held in the
planetarium, for which there will be absolutely no late admittance (because it
will ruin everyone’s dark-adapted vision if I open the door to let someone in
or out).
What to do if you have not finished before the end of class: I
prefer students not to make a deliberate habit of turning in late work, but I
understand that nobody wants to be rushed.
I will accept work as late as the start of the next class period
following when the lab was completed-- so long as you hand in your paper as
soon as you arrive.
Late work: The grace period for accepting any late lab
write-ups for full credit is the beginning of the next class period. Any work from one week prior that is turned
in after the next class has started will be subject to a penalty of 10%, then
an additional 20% for each week thereafter that passes since the exercise was
done in the classroom. Thus, the rules
are: up to 6.9 days late = no
penalty, 7 to 14 days late = 10% penalty, 15 to 21 days late = 30% penalty, 22
to28 days late = 50% penalty, etc.
The
Ideally, all ASTR-16 sections would meet only at
nighttime, and this section really is intended for students who have other
commitments in the late evening and therefore have no other choice. The experience of looking at the night sky,
both with and without binoculars and telescopes, is a very valuable part of any
practical astronomy lab class; but our day class will only observe the Sun and
the Moon in the daytime (and perhaps
a dark evening sky after 6:00 P.M. near the beginning of the semester, weather
permitting).
The
use of math: Because
this course transfers to the UC system and is most often used as a companion
course to ASTR-1, and also because practical astronomy is relentlessly
mathematical in nature, most of the exercises will make frequent use of basic
algebra and geometry. There will be a
lot of “number crunching.” (This is why
I strongly recommend buying a calculator if you do not have a calculator app on
your phone.) Math 860, or the
equivalent, is recommended.
Tutors
and mentors: If
you need help or general support outside of class, and
my office hours do not work for you, then you should take advantage of the
astronomy department’s student mentoring program. Mentors
are less formal than tutors, but they can still help you a lot. In many ways, their informality can make them
even more helpful than a tutor. Mentors
will be available for multiple “drop-in” hours in the 4th floor
planetarium. By February, I should be
able to post a schedule on the class website for these friendly folks.
The
“service learning” option: Interested
students may earn up to 15 points of extra credit by participating in a
service-learning program. (The amount of
extra credit awarded depends on the quality and quantity of the student’s
service-learning work.) The program
connects CCSF students with
Honor, and consequences of cheating: Cheaters, for the most part, cheat only themselves--
but the reputation of the college is also at stake if students earn improper
grades and transfer those grades to other institutions. In that sense, cheating will hurt
everyone. I won’t make it easy to cheat,
but I won’t be a policewoman either.
You’re mostly on your honor to be honest and to perform your best. However, if I catch anyone in an act of
academic dishonesty, they’ll get a course grade of “F” and be referred to a
counselor. I may also take other
disciplinary action for violating the rules of the college.
These are some things that I
would call “academic dishonesty” or cheating in this class: (This is not a complete list. If you are in doubt about something, you really
should ask.)
n consulting any other source of
information besides the sources I allow during one of the exams.
n turning in a word-for-word
identical copy of another student’s paper for an exercise or assignment that
was meant to done individually (similar papers are okay;
you’re encouraged and expected to work together, but don’t blindly copy
word-for-word from one another!)
n telling me a lie in order to
receive more credit for an exercise or an exam; or lying to me about the reason
for missing a class in order to take a make-up.
Extra Credit Opportunities (in addition to the bonus for perfect attendance):
Includes a new planetarium
and space exhibits.
Chabot Space and
Planetarium and public
observatory hours Fri. & Sat.
[This one is worth two points for touring the museum
and another two points if you attend the evening public observing and
also write a narrative about that.]
Urban guerilla astronomers
host monthly star parties on
24-hour event hotline: (415)
289-2007 www.sfsidewalkastronomers.org
Holt Planetarium & Lawrence Hall of Science
Shows on weekends and most
holidays
Centennial Dr. near
The Exploratorium
Hands-on museum of science, art, and human
perception – a San Francisco gem, now in an all new location! 10 am – 5 PM, Tue. – Sun., Pier 15 (Embarcadero and Green St.) (415) 528-4444 www.exploratorium.edu
Camping
Go camping out of town on a clear night and bring
your star wheel to use.
[Worth only one point, but it’s a very enlightening
way to earn one point!]
Please check the class website regularly for new
announcements regarding extra credit opportunities. Sometimes I learn of special events
just a few days before they happen, which may be too late to announce them in
class.