Course Description (from the CSUFresno 2002-2003 General Catalog): (3 credits). Not open to engineering students. Prerequisites: NSCI 1A and 1B. Examines the role that chemistry, physics, and technology play in our society. Designed especially for students planning careers as elementary school teachers.

Class objectives:
(1) To serve as a conceptual physics course, with emphasis on energy generation and use, and their effects on the environment.
(2) To run the course as a seminar, encouraging student participation.
(3) To promote student understanding of scientific method, and to practice critical thinking and reasoning skills, useful both in and outside of science.
(4) To examine the interaction between science, technology, and society, in the context of "the energy crisis."
(5) To provide experience with quantitative reasoning and graphics, again useful both in and outside of science.

Mathematics: This course will require the use of some algebra and basic geometry, but mainly a lot of arithmetic. We will also use scientific notation, units conversions, and proportions.

Course meeting times and location: Schedule 35825 (section 05): MW 2-3:15 p.m., in McLane 162.

Holidays: September 2 (Labor Day), November 27 (Thanksgiving)

Required Course Texts:

• Energy and the Environment, by Robert A. Ristinen and Jack L. Kraushaar (1999)
• New Energy Sources, by Nigel Hawkes (2000)
• NSci 116 Course Notes, by F. Ringwald (2003)
• The Elements of Style, 4th ed., by W. Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (2000)

• How Stuff Works, by Marshall Brain (2001)
• The Way Science Works, by Robin Kerrod and Sharon Ann Holgate (2002)

Required Course Equipment: (1) Clear plastic ruler; (2) Scientific calculator (that has scientific notation, and can calculate logarithmic and exponential functions)

Course web page: http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/nsci116.html

Course grades will be awarded for the following final percentages:
85.0-100% = A; 70.0-84.9% = B; 55.0-69.9% = C; 40.0-54.9% = D; 0-39.9% = F.
These percentages will be computed with the following weights:

30%		Two Midterm Exams (15% each)
10%		Homework and projects (Please note: no late assignments can be accepted)
5%		Paper titles and summaries, due Monday, November 25
20%		A 2200-word paper, due on the last day of instruction, on Wednesday, December 11
35%		Final Exam, which will be comprehensive (covering all material in the entire course), which will be Wednesday, December 18, 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the regular classroom

Please note:

• Attendance:
  All students are expected to attend all class sessions. All students are also expected to arrive for class on time, and to attend to the end of all class sessions. If you must miss a lecture for a compelling reason (e.g. job interview or illness documented by a doctor's note), then get the notes from another student.

• Keep up with the reading assignments, throughout the semester. Class time is valuable: it is much better spent in informed, active discussion among all of us than in just me talking. It always amazes me: the students who get "A"s are almost always the ones who keep up with the reading. The ones who don't, almost always are the ones who don't.

• Don't be shy about asking questions in class, or during office hours. Remember that the only "dumb" question is the one you didn't ask, that fouled you up later because you didn't ask it. This is especially so in this class, which I want to run as a seminar.

• All students are required to turn off all beepers, pagers, and portable phones while class lectures are in session, because they are so disruptive.

• I often use e-mail to communicate with students, and please feel free to send e-mail to me. However, all assignments must be handed in as paper copies during class, including homework, projects, paper titles and summaries, and papers.

• NO late assignments can be accepted, including homework, lab assignments, paper summaries, papers, or any other assignments. It's just not possible, in a class this size.

• Always show all work in all course assignments, especially in homework involving mathematical calculations, including the units. Not showing all work, and the correct units, will be cause for points to be taken off.

• All students are required to hang on to all class materials for the duration of the class. Hang onto all copies of all work you have done in all your classes, ever. Hang on to your textbooks, too: even the real stinkers can serve as bad examples.

• The Department of Physics cooperates with the Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) to make reasonable accomodations for qualified students with physical, perceptual, or learning disabilities (cf. Americans with Disabilities Act and Section of 504, Rehabilitation Act). Present your written accomodation request to Dr. Ringwald within the first two weeks of class.

• Do not bring children under 16 to class without the written permission of Dr. Ringwald. This is not the place for them. They are a distraction to whomever brings them in, other students, and especially to Dr. Ringwald.

• I plan to use the World Wide Web in this course. I will require you to know how to use an Internet browser and how to use e-mail. Most students will already know this, but if you don't, don't be embarrassed. Please let me know: I'd be glad to give you private lessons during my office hours. Although it would be a big advantage for your schoolwork, you need not own a computer, since you may use the computers in many labs around campus.

  If Web access is still a problem for you, please come to office hours or make an appointment, and I'll let you use my machine. I won't therefore accept excuses such as "I couldn't use the Internet" or "My browser wasn't Java enabled."

• Exams: There will be two midterm exams and a comprehensive final exam. The material for these exams will come from the lectures and assigned reading. All exams will be closed book and as such you may not use any notes or books during the exam. Calculators may be used for the exams.

  Sorry, but I do not give make-ups for midterm exams, nor can I give exams in advance. It's just not humanly possible, in a class this size. Besides, I can never be sure that a makeup was really fair, since it must be different from the regular exam. If you should have to miss a midterm exam for a compelling reason (e.g. job interview or illness documented by a doctor's note), I will void the part of the course grade that midterm would have counted and count the rest of the grade as 100%.

  Once a student leaves the classroom after taking an exam, the student may not re-enter the classroom as long as that exam is still taking place. The student's leaving the exam will be taken to signify that the student has finished that exam.

  All students are required to remove hats and sunglasses during all exams, because they have in the past been used to aid cheating. Students may not use calculators, pagers, or cell phone that can communicate outside the classroom during exams. Any students found attempting to do so will get an F in the entire course, because that constitutes cheating.

• I will allow students to collaborate with each other on homework and projects, provided everyone lists their "co-investigators" on their papers. Scientists often do this, and the ability to collaborate well and work as part of a team is a good skill to have, in science and in other professions.

  However, if you do collaborate, it must be genuine collaboration: not one person doing all the work, and the others blindly copying. That's cheating! Therefore, while you may work together, write up the results separately, in your own words. A dead giveaway is when I get two papers that are exactly the same. Do people think I don't notice it?

• Plagiarism: I like even less when students take papers from the Internet, and turn them in as their own work. This is now easy for professors to detect, with www.plagiarism.org. If I find a paper or web page anywhere that closely resembles yours, that web page had better have your name on it. If it doesn't, your turning it in with your name on it will be interpreted as an attempt to misrepresent someone else's work as your own, which constitutes plagiarism. Remember, always: you are responsible for anything with your name on it.

  Modifying someone else's paper slightly, or changing the words around, or stringing someone else's paragraphs together, even if they're cited, is no better: none of these dubious practices make it your paper. For information on the University's policy regarding cheating and plagiarism, refer to the Schedule of Courses (Legal Notices on Cheating and Plagiarism) or the University Catalog (Policies and Regulations).

• This syllabus is subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances. If you are absent from class, it is your responsibility to check on announcements made while you were absent.