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Syllabus |
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Instructor. Prof. William C. Conant (conant@d2l.arizona.edu), Office hours: MWF 11:00AM-12:00AM or by appointment at PAS 550.
TA. Ms. Anita Annamalai (anitaa@d2l.arizona.edu). Ms. Annamalai’s office hours will be from 10-11AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays in PAS 588. When coming to the PAS building be aware that we are on the 5th floor of the north wing (on the 4th St side), which cannot be accessed from the south wing, except on the ground floor.
D2L/website. This course will use D2L http://d2l.arizona.edu/ for uploading homework assignments, reporting of grades, announcements, and email. I will use a separate website http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/courses/fall11/atmo170a1s5/ as the course homepage, which will be where I post this syllabus, lecture notes, and other materials.
Required Textbook. The textbook: Essentials of Meteorology, by C. Donald Ahrens, 6th edition, is available in the bookstore. I believe you can also obtain an online version of the book for a lower price. The course will rely heavily on this text in addition to the lecture notes/slides. Editions 4 and 5 are acceptable (and less expensive, if bought used), but you remain responsible for deciphering any changes in page numbering.
Clickers. Students are required to have a Turning Technologies RCXR-01 clicker, which can be bought at the bookstore. I will begin using the clickers in my lecture on Friday. Set your clicker up with your UA NETID so you can receive credit for your participation in class activities.
Grading Policy. Grades will be based on quizzes, writing assignments, a final exam, and extra credit. The percent contribution of each of these will depend somewhat on how well you are doing. The final will count more if it helps your grade, and will count less if it hurts your grade. Quizzes: There will be 4 closed-book quizzes administered on Wednesdays. The tentative schedule is Sep 28, Oct 19, Nov 9, and Nov 30. A practice Quiz will be held on Sep 14. You are required to have your CatCard at each quiz for credit! Writing Assignments: There will be at least four required take-home writing assignments. These are described on the pages entitled “1S1P assignments” and “Lab Reports”. Together, all writing assignments count the same as one Quiz. Extra Credit: There are occasional in-class activities and extra take-home assignments that, when combined, can increase your pre-final grade. Final Exam: The closed-book final is from 10:30AM-12:30PM on Wed, Dec 14 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. 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 your grade on the final is better than the new pre-final grade, the final will count as 40% of your total grade. Otherwise, it will be 20%. 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. Use of cellphones in the class is prohibited – ringers should be turned off. There is a zero-tolerance policy for cheating in any capacity (copying, plagiarizing, changing answers on graded material and submitting for a re-grade, sharing clickers…etc.). A student caught cheating will be dropped from the course on his/her first offense and a report will be filed with the Dean of Students. See UA’s the code of academic integrity and the policy against threatening behavior by students at http://dos.web.arizona.edu/uapolicies and http://policy.web.arizona.edu/~policy/threaten.shtml. Absence and Deadline Policy. In anticipation of the ups and downs of collegiate life, there are plenty of opportunities to improve your grade in this class, for example, by dropping the lowest quiz; extra credit points; and by doing additional writing assignments. Because these allowances are already built into the grading system, I will be very strict on absences and homework deadlines. There are two types of excused absences: expected absences and emergencies. Expected absences include religious holidays, competition in NCAA events, and other absences pre-approved by the Dean of Students. Expected absences on quiz/exam dates must be scheduled at the beginning of the semester, or as soon as the information requiring the absence becomes available. Please email these absence requests to Dr. Conant ASAP if they will affect a quiz date mentioned above or the final exam. Emergencies, such as sudden illness or family emergencies, will only be honored if they are documented by an independent 3rd party, such as a note from Campus Health. Do not request an excused absence unless it affects a quiz/exam date. Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes: This course provides an introduction to the science of weather processes and climate, including the lifecycles of fronts and cyclones, precipitation processes, the wind systems of the world, severe storms, and weather forecasting. Special emphasis will be given to natural phenomena which have strong impacts on human activities including tornadoes, hurricanes, El Niño, global warming, ozone depletion, and air pollution. The fundamental importance of physics, chemistry, and mathematics to atmospheric science will be stressed. As a NATS 101 course, it will use the atmosphere to provide an overview of key concepts in physical and chemical processes, including Newton's laws governing force and motion, the laws of thermodynamics governing energy and entropy, the role of electromagnetism in nature, and the atomic structure of matter. DRC. Students who are registered with the Disability Resource Center must submit appropriate documentation to the instructor if they are requesting reasonable accommodations: http://drc.arizona.edu/teach/syllabus-statement.html. |
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ATMO 170A1: The Earth and its Environments Section 5: Introduction to Weather and Climate |
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ATMO 170A1: The Earth and its Environments Section 5: Introduction to Weather and Climate |
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Instructor: Prof. William C. Conant |
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MWF 10:00-10:50 AM ILC 140 |