Syllabus, Geog 201 - Earth Science II, Spring 2004

Room 209 Felmley Hall, 6:00 - 8:50 Wednesdays

 

Ph: 8-2833 for my office in 430 Felmley Hall Annex,         jrcarter@ilstu.edu

Office hours:  4:00 – 5:00 Monday and 10:00 – 11:30 Tuesday and Wednesday

 

Texts: Christopherson, Geosystems: An Introduction to Physical Geography, 5th edition.  PIPS Packet:  a collection of material I put together for this class.  Purchase Packet 47.  Please bring both the text and the PIPS material to each class. 

 

The course is designed to

- give you a basic foundation in physical geography with the requisite vocabulary

- expose you to the professional literature of physical geography

- explore resources on various aspects of physical geography

- master technologies that will serve you in your academic studies and in seeking employment

 

Because the course is being offered on only one night per week, it is important that good use is made of that single meeting.  It is most important that you try to get to every class.  I will try to make the classes interesting and diverse.  Come prepared to do more than listen to lectures.

 

You will be given short term and long term assignments and you are expected to complete those assignments on the due date.  You are expected to do your own work and to meet the ethical standards spelled out in the undergraduate catalog.  On the other hand, you are encouraged to cooperate with your colleagues in the class to build on the synergy that comes from cooperation.

 

We will work through the text to cover much of the material.  We will go lighter on some things than on others.  I will emphasize the interpretation of many of the graphics in the text.  I consider it important that you be able to understand all of the maps, graphs, diagrams, and photos in the texts.  Be prepared to explain your interpretation of the many graphics in the texts.  If you have trouble with any of the graphics, feel free to ask me for help.  Some of the material in these books is quite complex and is not readily explainable.  In fact, there are some diagrams I have trouble with.

 

The first night we will log on to the GEO201-L listserv.  I expect students to communicate with each other and with me via email.   I will also put you into WebCT.  We will work through a portion of the material I use in my Geo211-Weather course.  To begin the course and get a good background, I want you to work through the first six modules of the weather course.  In particular, I want to make certain you have a working image of nature of our Earth and the patterns of weather and climate on this Earth.

 

WebCT has other functions that we may use.  Let us see how the class goes before we commit to using those other functions.

 

Build Your Own Web Pages:  The Web has become a great resource for many things. One project this semester is to have you build a web page relating to a specific topic of interest in physical geography.  You will be given specific assignments on this.  We will start the class by building a simple web page.  There are many reasons why we are making our own web pages.

 

  • The University provides resources to make your own web pages.  I feel it is important to learn to use these resources.  All students in Teacher Education will be expected to have a personal web page before graduating.  Therefore, those students will get a head-start in this class. 
  • One set of maps you will make can be best displayed on the web.  So, to make a display of the maps you create you need to put them on the web.
  • You are to write a research paper on a topic in physical geography for this class.  Rather than write the paper in the classic sense, you will write that paper for presentation on the web.
  • Having an attractive web page will look good on your resume.

 

Note that in previous years students in the class have made web pages.  You can see their work by looking at the web pages for this course at:  www.ilstu.edu/~jrcarter/Geo201/   Look at the pages by year of the class.

 

We will see a few good videos during the semester. I have written summaries of these videos and they are contained in a packet of material for sale at PIPS, in the Bone Student Center.  I expect you to have studied the summaries before you see the videos. There may be pop quizzes on the summaries before the videos are shown, or after.

 

The exact pace of the semester will be determined as we go through the semester. We will have two tests during the semester, and a final exam during exam week. There will be take-home questions as part of each exam.

 

The grades for the class will be based on:

Test one - 20 %

Test two - 20 %

Final exam - 25 %

Participation, assignments and in-class quizzes.  This will include writing your basic web page - 15 %

Your research and LDEO Web pages  - 20%

 

We will be interviewing three candidates for an assistant professor position in Physical/Environmental Geography in the first three weeks of this semester.  I want you to review the material on these candidates and to hear one or more of their presentations.  You should join colleagues for lunch with the candidates on Thursday noon, where you will also get free pizza.  This will be a good opportunity to see what others think about physical geography.

 

The class will be broken into three sections, as follows:

 

First:  we will work on a big-picture view of the Earth as reflected in the oceans and the continents, climates, biomes and Earth / Sun relationships.  As such we will pick from Parts 1, 2 and 4 of the text.  I will have you work through some modules in my WebCT course on Weather.  You need to become comfortable working with globes.  We will make web pages based on the LDEO web site, just as has been done in previous years.   We are likely to have the first exam on Feb. 11

 

Second:  in this section we will focus on the hydrologic cycle and the role of water budget models.  We will pick from the Geosystems text and read three articles on reserve in Milner Library.  Look for the second exam on March 24

 

Third:  in this section we will focus on the lithosphere and the various processes shaping the land surface.  As such we will focus mostly on Part 3 of the text.  We will see a number of videos in this section.  The exam over this material will be the final exam, on Wednesday, May 5. 

 

On a research paper for Physical Geography, Spring 2004

 

I want you to write a research paper for this class.  The paper will be presented on the Web for viewing by the world.    At the end of the semester, you will be called upon to review and evaluate some of the web pages of your classmates.  You need a web page that your classmates can review.  So, as you think about this consider what you would like to see on your colleagues pages. 

 

As the author of a research paper, I expect you to gather information from many sources.  You should have references from both the published literature and web sites.  And, you need to give proper attribution for each source.  We will review the formats for referencing sources of information.  Basically, you want a reference so that anyone who looks at your page can find the same information. 

  • For a published book, you need to give:  Author(s), date of publication, title, place of publication, name of the publisher.  
  • For a published article, you need to give:  Author(s), date of publication, title of the article, journal name or document series name, volume if appropriate, pages of the article.
  • For a web page, you need to give the name of the site or the name of the organization hosting the site, the URL of the site, the date you viewed this site  (note: web sites change frequently, so it is important to give the date on which you viewed the material)

 

I expect to receive a meaningful email message from you at least every other week in which you give me a progress report on your work on your Web pages.  Your email messages should be honest and informative.  If you had not done anything in the past two weeks, say that.  Of course, you cannot say that all semester long.  Feel free to ask for help if you are not finding what you think you should be able to find.  Remember, send you email to jrcarter@ilstu.edu    Do not send it to the listserv.