Syllabus
Info
| Credits | 3 |
| Time | Monday&Thursday 1.30-2.50 |
| Place | Brown Science/Sci 117A |
| Level | Introductory |
| Faculty | Salimbeni |
| Office Hours: | by appointment in my office (M, W, Th, F)
|
| Tutor | TBD |
An introduction to the physical principles behind energy, energy uses and their effect on the environment, suitable for science students and non-science students. Some of the included topics are: mechanical energy, conservation of energy, heat and work, production of energy (e.g solar, fossil fuels, biomass). Prerequisite: High school algebra
Textbook
Students may purchase either the 4th (tables are not up to date, but it is less expensive) or the 5th edition of Energy by Hinrichs. You can rent or buy an electronic version of the book as well. These last two options are more economical ways to obtain the 5th edition.
Student Accessibility
This course will honor all reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. If you have a disability that requires specific accommodation, please contact Catherine O’Callaghan, Assistant Dean of Academic Advising & Support (cocallag@marlboro.edu). Catherine will convene the ADA committee to review documentation and determine what accommodations are warranted. Catherine will then provide a letter to faculty outlining reasonable accommodations. It is your responsibility to engage in this process; i.e., disclose your disability, provide documentation, request accommodations, and deliver the accommodations letter to your faculty.
Course Policies & Grading
We will set some of the ground rules for this course during the first day of class.
Attendance & Participation & Reading
Attending classes and actively contributing to the class discussion is an essential component of your learning experience, for this reason attendance is part of your grade (20% of your final grade). We will discuss and agree on an attendance policy during the first day of class.
You are encuraged to come to class prepared to discuss the material and ask questions. Reading the material is critical for having a productive class time, failing to prepare will affect the learning of you and your classmates.
Portfolio
Experiments, reports, worksheets and assignments completed during the semester will be part of your portfolio (50% of the grade). Students are encouraged to work together on the assignments, experiments and worksheets, unless otherwise stated. However, your final write-up must represent your own understanding; copying another person's work is plagiarism and will result in no credit for that assignment.
Final Presentation
In the last week you will have to give a presentation to the rest of the class (30% of the grade). The presentation will be on a topic linked to the material discussed in this course that you consider interesting. You will research this topic "independently" with my supervision and support. We will discuss the details, possible topics and expectations for this assignment in class.
Plagiarisms
Academic Honesty is expected of all scientists, and also of all students. Cheating on homework or the final exam will result in no credit.
If you are not sure on how to use a source, please check this
link on the library webpage.
Grading
During the semester you will receive detailed feedback on the various components of your work. We will meet before midterm to discuss the work collected in your portfolio, your academic standing and ways to improve your grade. We will have a second meeting at the end of the semester to discuss all of your work done during the semester. During this second meeting we will convert the feedback you received into a letter grade, this process will require a component of self-evaluation.
Grade Letters
The green represents the range of numerical grades that corresponds to the letter grade
Tentative Schedule
I fear that this schedule is a little optimistic, we will discuss in class what topics interest you the most to modify it. I will update this schedule during the semester.
Week Topics
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0 An Introduction
1 Position, velocity, acceleration, forces, work, energy - Experiment with carts
2 Conservation of energy, efficiency, first law of thermodynamics - Experiment on conservation of energy
3 Calorimeter experiment - Second law to thermodynamics - Introduction to engines
4 Home energy conservation - Measurement of R factor
5 Solar energy and passive houses - Construction of a solar oven & Passive house analysis with Energy 2D software
6 (Energy from fossil fuels - Debate on Fracking )
7 Brief introduction to electricity - Experiments with circuits
8 Electricity generation
9 Solar, wind and hydro - Guest Presenter on wind - Field trip to a solar company
10 Solar, wind and hydro - Construction of an hydroelectric Dam model
11 Introduction to the atom and nucleus - Nuclear Fission
12 Individual work on research topic
13 Presentations
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