There
are no official prerequisite courses needed to take this class.
The lectures and content are designed for first- and second-year
undergraduates with entry-level skills in physical sciences, mathematics,
social studies, and economics. All of what you are expected to know
and learn in this class can be derived from the lectures and readings.
Lectures
Lectures meet from 4:10-5:25 PM, Tuesday, Thursday in
702 Hamilton. Attendance is taken and counts toward final grade.
Homework
There will be eight homework assignments for the semester. The highest
six homework grades will be used to calculate your overall homework
grade. Note that homework must be your own work always; evidence
to the contrary will result in a zero entered for your entire semster
homework grade
Textbooks
and readings
There are no official textbooks to purchase. Supplemental reading
materials will be distributed on line as PDFs or in class.
Some
key texts for the class and for your projects:
Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, 4th Assessment Report (IPCC-AR4,
2007)
Summary,
Chapters 1,
2, 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8, 9,
10, 11, FAQs
National
Academy of Sciences, National Research Council: Abrupt Climate
Change - Inevitable Surprises (NAS-NRC, 2003)
Front
Matter, Summary,
Chapters 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
Color
Plates
Projects
There is one term project for this course, which will be a group
web poster. This project is designed to have students research,
organize, construct, and present scientific format web poster project
that addresses the main science and society theme of this course.
Students will be given a hand out which outlines the scope of the
project, how to research and select suitable topics, and how the
presentation should be formatted. Students are expected to organize
themselves into small teams of 2-4 to develop an implementation
plan for constructing the web poster. The final posters will be printed
out and students will make their project presentations on the last
day of class.
Tests
There will be one 1h15m midterm exam and one two-hour final exam.
The tests will be comprised of a mixture of multiple choice and
short-answer questions. Material from the lectures, labs, and required
readings (both on-line and handouts) will be covered on exams. The
final exam will emphasize material covered since the second midterm,
but will also involve concepts studied before the midterm. Students
will be given handouts which define the evaluation criteria for
the final poster project.
