Mon., May 5 notes

Monday May 5, 2008

Today's before the start of class music was "A Whiter Shade of Pale" sung by Annie Lennox and was from her 1995 Medusa CD.

Up to date grade summaries were handed out in class today. Please check them carefully for errors.
Here's an example grade summary

All of the work you have turned in this semester has been graded and should be included on the grade summary.
The overall average with no quizzes dropped must be 90.0% or above to get out of the final. The last line on the grade summary will tell you whether you need to take the final exam or not.
If you do have to take the final then it is the second average grade that is important. Your lowest quiz score is dropped when computing this average.

The Course Evaluation was conducted today.
The following message was displayed during the evaluation.

I hope this semester hasn't been too unpleasant
and that I haven't done any lasting damage.
I've mostly enjoyed teaching the course but
would like to enjoy it even more.
Most of the enjoyment I get comes from positive feedback from you.

Please take a moment and add a written comment or two
on the evaluation form and give me some specific ideas
that would improve the class and make it more interesting.
What would you like to see more of and less of if you were to take it again
(I shouldn't mention it but there may be one or two of you that might need to take the class again)

Coming up after the evaluation
Weather in the news - short video
Public service announcement

how to figure what you need on the Final Exam

to improve your grade
to keep the grade you currently have

Here's an example of how to determine what you would need to score on the final exam to either raise your overall grade or to preserve your present grade.

If your current grade is 87.5% (B) you might wonder what you would need to the final to raise that to 90.0 and end up with an A. In cases like this where you do well enough on the final that it will raise your overall grade, the final counts as 40% of your overall grade

Your current grade multiplied by 60% plus your final exam grade multiplied by 40% must equal 90.0 or above. You set up the equation above and solve for the final exam score.

Subtract 52.5% from both sides

Divide both sides by 0.4

You would need a 94% on the final to raise your overall grade to an A. That won't be easy but it is certainly possible. There will probably be several people that earn grades that high.

What if you're happy with a B? How low could you score on the final and not drop from a B to a C. In this case your current grade is 80% of your overall grade, the final exam score counts 20%.

The desired grade is now 80% (a B). You solve this equation for the final exam score

Subtract 70% from both sides and then divide the result by 0.2

As long as you score 50% or above your B would be safe.

A little review was squeezed in at the end of class. That probably wasn't such a good idea.

The 5 most abundant gases in the earth's atmosphere (in alphabetical order) are:
argon (Ar), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), and water vapor (H2O)

List them in order across a piece of paper (most abundant on the left, least abundant on the right)
Here's the answer:

Now try to match the descriptions or information below with one of the gases above.
a. Source of latent heat energy
b. photosynthesis removes this gas from the air
c. about 1% of the air we breathe is composed of this inert gas
d. carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so is this gas
e. the primary source of this gas is plants and photosynthesis
f. dew point temperatures for the past several weeks have been in the teens and single digits meaning there hasn't been much of this gas in the air
g. this gas is consumed during combustion
h. this gas is a product of clean combustion

Here are a couple more questions
Because of the greenhouse effect the surface of the earth is WARMER COLDER than it would be otherwise.

About 50% of the sunlight arriving at the earth (a mixture of _______, _______, and _______ light) passes through the atmosphere and gets absorbed by the ground. The ground warms and begins to emit _______ radiation. Greenhouse gases __________ most of this light. The atmosphere in turn __________ __________ light upward into space and downward to the ground. The ground effectively gets back some of what it would otherwise have lost.

Because of the greenhouse effect the surface of the earth is WARMER than it would be otherwise.

About 50% of the sunlight arriving at the earth (a mixture of Ultraviolet (UV), visible, and Infrared (IR) light) passes through the atmosphere and gets absorbed by the ground. The ground warms and begins to emit IR radiation. Greenhouse gases absorb most of this light. The atmosphere in turn emits IR light upward into space and downward to the ground. The ground effectively gets back some of what it would otherwise have lost.

The entire period on Wednesday will be spent on review. It should be possible in the hour we have on Wednesday and with the 2 hour marathon review scheduled for Thursday to cover everything on the Final Exam Study Outline.