Readings and questions:

Readings in either MW  or Astro or both will be assigned most weeks.  Some of these are listed here; others will be announced and posted on updates here.

Weekly web entries

Each week, you will post two entries on the web, in the appropriate "Discussion Topic". 
    The first entry will be a commentary on the Readings for the week - (not a summary of what you read, but an interesting comment, reaction you had, etc, etc), followed by  TWO NUMBERED QUESTIONS for class discussion. 
    The second entry  will be an original and thoughtful commentary, reflection, etc. on the material we covered that week in class.

 Entries should be approximately 100 words and should be interesting to other members of the class (a tough standard!) - 
they  must be posted no later than Sunday night at 11:59pm.

Final reflective essays

Your final reflective essays may either be posted in the Final Essay forum on the web site, or be submitted by e-mail to larry@umn.edu by May 9  at 11:59pm. They should be 450-550 words long, and be original and thoughtful reflections on the content and experience of the course. Essays that appear to be first drafts will be returned for revision with a loss of one grade. Standards will be discussed further in class.

Presentation guidelines: (in groups of 2 or 3)

One week before your presentation, you will submit in writing an outline of the topics you will cover, along with the references you are using.

You will prepare a 40 minute lesson (combined) for the class, to be followed by an open discussion/exercise. For the class participation portion, you should prepare either questions for us to discuss and/or a class activity. The presentations should be interesting and informative, and their format (lecture, audio-visual, interactive, etc) is open to negotiation.

Grading:
  All weekly assignments will be graded on a three-level basis:  excellent (3) , satisfactory (2) , and unsatisfactory (1).
An average grade of "satisfactory" will be equivalent to a B.
   
    Reading reflections and questions (web)   20%
    Class reflections (web) 20%
    Final essay    20%
    Class presentation     20%  (to be discussed later)
    Class participation over whole semester  20%, including 'fascinating facts'
     
 

NOTE: ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IS SUBJECT TO REVISION!
 

Date	TOPIC	ASSIGNED  READING (incomplete)	PRESENTATIONs	Who?
Jan 17	Introductions- People and Course Probing the Limits	MW: Ch. 1,2,3 (on your own, no class disc.)	-	LR
Jan 24	Making Sense of the Sky	MW: Ch. 4, 5	Visit - New Student Wknd	LR
Jan 31	Human Limits	A: Light/Telescopes	-	LR
Feb 7	Brain and Vision	Windows into the Brain	Computational Vision Lab GO directly to N13 Elliot - see HERE	Dan Kersten
Feb 14	The world of the too small	Three short pieces:  1. Mission/Objectives of Characterization Facil. 2. Look at pictures through instruments (click on each picture) 3. Pick one instrument from here, and look at "applications" on its page	Characterization Facility - Shepherd Labs basement (meet in B49)	Greg Haugstad
Feb 21	Building a better? brain	Meet in B49 Read  http://www.bsu.edu/web/MAWILLIAMS/history.html (simplified but informative) and also pick TWO projects to read about from http://www.ri.cmu.edu/project_lists/index.html	Meet in B49	Nikos Papanikolopoulos
Feb 28		The Statistics on Magnetic Reversals Will the Compasses Point South? Probing the Geodynamo	Earth's Magnetism, Geology	Subir Banerjee
Mar 7		selections from:       Who is Blind?      Care and Feeding...      Color	Seeing Beyond the Eyes (B49)	Jennifer Dunnam
Mar 21	Newton vs. Einstein -  the world at high speeds and high gravity	MW:  Chapters 6,10 Late addition, please try to read: Alchemy	False Hopes, Alchemists,  Lamarckians, etc.	Topic List/Biblio 3/7 Detailed Outline 3/14 Justin Sarah
Mar 28		MW:  11,12,13	Time	Brad Michaellong Lance
Apr 4		Higher Dimensions?	Life in two dimensions	Vahid,  Deborah
Apr 11		Reading Instructions - READ FIRST! Reading 1 Reading 2 Reading 3 Reading 4	Science and Absolute Truth	Jacob Lisa
Apr 18		Dark matter reading (Carlos Frenk) p. 413-419 (or further if you want) in MW	Dark matter, dark energy and the fate of the universe-	Stephanie Matt
Apr 25	Is Anyone Out There?	MW: 19    A: SETI	The Search for ET at home and away	Zach Michael Aaron
May 2	Origins and the Anthropic Principle	MW: 18, 20 + reserve readings		LR