How To Find Me
E-mail: |
njaustin@uca.edu |
Office: |
LSC 014 |
Office |
M−F 8:00−9:30 other times by appointment |
Phone: |
501.450.4910 |
Fax: |
501.852.2286 |
Stellarium
If you have your own computer, you might want to download Stellarium, a free, open-source planetarium program. We will be using this program in lab.
Disclaimer
All standard disclaimers apply. I reserve the right to modify these course policies, assignments, due dates, etc. as necessary or appropriate for meeting the goals of this course.
Attendance
Labs meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in LSC 161 or LSC 174. Lab attendance is mandatory, and you should expect to attend the section in which you are enrolled. Expect to attend every lab every week, and expect to have to stay for a full 90 minutes. It is very likely that some labs won't take as long, but you can't know in advance when you might finish up fifteen minutes early, so please do not make plans to be somewhere else during lab hours.
Attendance will be carefully and thoroughly recorded daily. There are 10 lab sessions scheduled for the semester. Ten labs will count toward your grade, and you are required to attend and participate in nine of them. Failure to attend and participate in nine labs will result in a grade of F for the semester. This policy applies to every single student, and no exceptions to the attendance policy will be made for any reason.
If you leave lab early, before you have finished, you will be recorded as absent. In addition, You must attend and participate in the first labs of the semester in order to learn the skills you will need for successful completion of subsequent labs. If you miss either lab during the first week of the semester, you will be withdrawn from the class for non-attendance. This policy applies to every single student, and no exceptions to the attendance policy will be made for any reason.
Ten lab assignments will count toward your course grade. There are ten labs scheduled on the calendar. In addition, there are two extra opportunities for you to complete an out-of-class assignment which may also count as a lab. These are detailed below. If you must miss a lab, these are the only opportunities to participate in a make up. If you choose, you may complete all twelve lab exercises. If you complete all twelve labs and quizzes, only the highest ten quiz scores will count towards your grade. The lowest two quiz scores will be dropped.
Lab Supplies
You must have a lab notebook. You should use a hard-bound book with quadrille-ruled paper and sewn-in pages. These are inexpensive and readily available at the UCA Bookstore. Wal-Mart and Office Depot do not always stock these. You should always bring the notebook to lab, along with pens or pencils, a calculator, and your textbook.
You're going to need a calculator. You will need a scientific calculator. If you have a TI graphing calculator, this is perfect. However, if you don't−don't panic. You will not need a graphing calculator, and inexpensive scientific calculators are easily available. A base-model scientific calculator can be found for under $20. Also, the library lets you check out calculators.
There is a lab manual posted online in .pdf format, and each week's lab handouts are also online in .pdf format. You are required to download and print out your own lab materials prior to coming to lab. No paper copies will be provided by the lab instructor! Read the assignment carefully before coming to lab, then come prepared. Review the sections of the text that pertain to the exercise and make a note of any questions that you might have. You should record all data, calculations, and answers to questions in your lab notebook.
Non-Attendance
There are 10 scheduled labs, and you only need to complete nine; however, ten count towards your grade, and there are no make up labs or quizzes available. If you must miss a lab for any reason, please let me know. There are two available assignments which can be completed independently for lab credit, should you need a make up.
Eight labs is an F. It is a very risky strategy to skip labs for no real reason on the assumption that you will remain perfectly healthy (or that nothing calamitous will happen) for the rest of the semester. I would not take that chance. If you do not complete nine labs, you fail. There is no way to negotiate a compromise on this policy.
Also, let me repeat: If you miss any two of the first four labs, you will be withdrawn from the class for non-attendance. No exceptions to this attendance policy will be made for any reason. There are no freebies. No matter how good your excuse is for missing that third lab, the end result will be the same: F. Please make it easy on yourself and just come to lab every week.
Lab Exercises
The menu below will take you to the lab handouts. I will not be bringing the handouts to lab every week for you. Notice you have two choices; a mobile-friendly screen version and a printer-friendly .pdf version. You are responsible for downloading and printing your own lab materials. The handouts are all located on this course web; there are no documents to be found on Blackboard (because this course does not use Blackboard. Ever.)
Read the handout before you come to lab; the better prepared you are when you arrive, the more quickly and efficiently you will be able to complete the assignment.
You will also have opportunities to earn lab credit outside of regular lab hours. You may choose to complete one or two of the three available make up labs. Make up lab sessions are scheduled for Tuesdays after lecture (at our regular lab time). If you decide to attend a make up session, you should let me know in advance. Please don't show up 30 or 40 minutes late...I might not even be there anymore. If no one requests a make up lab, I'll be home lounging by the pool.
You may complete the make ups whenever you like; you may not need me to explain or demonstrate. If you complete any of the labs independently, please make sure that you do get some feedback before you turn in your work. If you have misinterpreted anything, you probably want a chance to fix it before you submit it. The make up labs linked below are the only make up labs available.
Lab Quizzes
Each Friday after your unit exam, you will have a lab quiz that covers the material from the labs immediately preceding it. Quizzes will be brief, and given at the end of the exam. You are always allowed to use your lab notebook and a calculator when you take your quizzes, and you must have your clicker as well.
You must participate in a lab exercise in order to receive quiz credit. Attendance rosters will be cross-checked with quiz scores, and if you have taken a quiz for a lab that you did not attend and complete, the quiz score will not be recorded for a grade. You cannot receive credit for an exercise you have not completed. If you complete more than the ten required quizzes, only the ten highest scores will count towards your grade. Any extra quizzes that you complete may not be used as extra credit.
