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NATS 101: The Earth and Its Environment |
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Syllabus |
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Section 33: Introduction to Weather and Climate Instructor: Prof. William C. Conant |
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MWF 1:00-1:50 PM |
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Instructor. Prof. William C. Conant (conant@atmo.arizona.edu), Office hours: MW 3-4 or by appointment at PAS 550.
TA. Stephen Bieda (email: bieda@atmo.arizona.edu),. Office hours: TR (T/Th) 1:30-3 or by appointment at PAS 476. Note that we are on the 5th floor in the north wing of PAS — you can’t get to the north wing from the south wing except on the 2nd floor.
Email Policy. Feel free to email either Mr. Bieda or Prof. Conant with any questions you may have, or to schedule office hour appointments. Please make the subject of all emails NATS101-33. Some of you may be new to writing emails in a professional environment. Please read the following article: http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-to-e-mail-professor.html. All students should subscribe to the course e-mail list so we can send you notifications by email of any changes in office hours, course reading, etc., or to give supplementary electronic handouts. To subscribe, follow the instructions at: http://listserv.arizona.edu/Subscribe.html. The list you want to join is “conant”.
Required Textbook. The textbook: Essentials of Meteorology, by C. Donald Ahrens, 5th edition, is available in the bookstore. The course will rely heavily on this text. Editions 3 and 4 are acceptable (and less expensive, if bought used), but beware of changes in page numbering. You can purchase electronic access to the text at half-cost at: http://uanats.ichapterssites.com.
Online Study Guide. THIS IS NOT REQUIRED. You can get access to the ThompsonNOW online study guide by either A) purchasing a new text from the bookstore and using the subscription code in your book, or B) purchasing a subscription to ThompsonNOW directly at the website: http://uanats.ichapterssites.com for about $35. I have handouts on how to register for this.
Grading Policy. Grades will be based on quizzes, writing assignments, a final exam, and extra credit. Quizzes: There will be 4 closed-book quizzes administered on Wednesdays. The tentative schedule is Sep. 26, Oct 17, Nov 7, and Nov 28. A practice Quiz will be held on Sep 12. Bring your CatCard to each quiz! About 90% of the quiz material will come from lecture. The remaining 10% will come from portions of the reading material and distributed notes that are not covered in lecture. Writing Assignments: There will be several take-home writing assignments. These are described elsewhere. Together, all writing assignments count the same as one Quiz. Extra Credit: There are occasional in-class activities and optional take-home assignments that, when combined, can increase your grade. These are scheduled, and can’t be crammed in at the end of the semester. Final Exam: The closed-book final is from 11AM-1PM on Monday Dec. 10 in ILC 140. Bring your CatCard to the final! Grading Scale: 90.0%-100.0% = A; 80.0%-89.9% = B; 70.0%-79.9%=C; 60.0%-69.9% = D; Below 60.0% = E. This scale is firm. Weighting: This is where it gets complicated. There are 2 (actually 3) possibilities: Case 1: The average of your quiz and writing grades plus extra credit points is at or above 90.0%. Congratulations! You get an A and don’t have to take the final. Case 2: Your pre-final score is below 90.0%. You must take the final. A new pre-final grade is now determined after dropping your lowest quiz score (but NOT the writing score). If you do well on the final, it will count as 40% of your total grade. If you do poorly on the final, it will only count as 20% of your total grade. I will give examples in class of how this works out for a few different cases.
Student Responsibilities. You are expected to follow the University of Arizona Code of Academic Integrity and to treat fellow students, teaching assistants, and the instructor with courtesy and respect. Participate actively in the learning process by reading textbook assignments as they are given, thinking about what you are writing as you take notes in class, completing and turning in assignments on time, and asking questions about confusing class or textbook material.
Honors Credit. Honors credit is available through this course by establishing an individualized educational plan with Prof. Conant. If 15 or more students request Honors Credit, we will establish a 1-hour, weekly honors discussion section that will go beyond the course material. See http://gened.arizona.edu/gened/policies/outcomehs.htm |