| Penn State METEO 471W: Syllabus |
| On this page: | Textbooks | Grading | Course Contents |
| Meteo 471: | Home Page | Lecture and Assignment Dates | |
TIME and LOCATION
Class times and places: TR 1:00 - 2:15 in 116 Earth and Engineering Sciences Building
Office hours: TR 11:00 - 12:30 in 621 Walker
Required Text: Elements of Style (2000) by Strunk and White
Other Books: (Available on Reserve in the EMS Library):CALL NUMBER - AUTHOR(S) - TITLE
T11.F53 2000 - Finkelstein - Pocket Book of Technical Writing
QC861.2.B64 1987 - Bohren - Clouds in a Glass of Beer
QC871.B64 1991 - Bohren - What Light Through Yonder Window
Breaks?QC24.5v67 1993 - von Baeyer - Rainbows, Snowflakes, and Quarks
QC861.H8 1964 - Humphreys - Physics of the Air
(Other books may be put on reserve later)
Internet Sites:
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~young/short/usindex.html
http://fbox.vt.edu/eng/mech/writing/
http://fbox.vt.edu/eng/mech/writing/exercises/index.html
http://www.fauxpress.com/kimball/w/logo.htm
http://www.polarimage.fi/
http://www.meteoros.de/indexe.htm
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/
http://www.google.com(Please be willing to share any other useful and appropriate "finds" on the Internet pertaining to writing or observing the atmosphere.)
COURSE DESCRIPTION / OBJECTIVES
Meteo 471W is a 3-credit writing-intensive course with a focus on observing and understanding natural phenomena related to the atmosphere. Writing exercises will be used extensively to learn about the atmosphere, while we simultaneously learn the process of writing scientific material. We will thus both "write to learn" and "learn to write". Assignments will include 6 biweekly papers, one term paper, and an oral presentation of the term paper. The biweekly papers will describe the physics responsible for the atmospheric phenomenon captured in an accompanying image. Students will provide their own images, either ones they have taken during the course of the semester or ones taken from the MODIS realtime satellite archives. No student may use either source for more than 4 of their 6 papers. The term paper will be a longer, more in depth study of an image or set of images from either source, written to Monthly Weather Review "Picture of the Month" standards. The oral presentation will be a 10 minute talk supported by appropriate web-based imagery.
Grading Policy: Progress toward understanding atmospheric/meteorological phenomena will be assessed primarily via the content of the writing assignments. Writing quality is expected to improve over the course of the semester, the grade of A being reserved for attaining "near-publishable" quality, both in style and scientific content. Traditional-style exams will not be given. The weightings give to the various components of the course are listed below:
- Biweekly writing assignments 60%
- Term paper 20%
- Oral presentation 20%
Expectations and Policies for Meteo 471W: As an advanced student of the sciences you are expected to have a solid background in mathematics and physics. Your textual material will need to reflect significant depth of understanding about the phenomena and processes in the atmosphere. Students with inadequate backgrounds in the fundamental sciences or lacking the formal prerequisites are advised to postpone enrollment in this course.
Each student is expected to have adequate resources available for completing assignments. Writing assignments are to be carefully type written, preferably with the help of a word processor and an image editor. Preparation/arrangement of audiovisual aids used for the oral presentation are the responsibility of the student. In lieu of significant expenses for textbooks, costs may be incurred in the purchase of simple photographic or audio equipment, film, processing, etc. that may be needed to gather and present information about the atmosphere. Unless otherwise stated, all images and recordings are to be acquired during the current semester.
Academic integrity: Cheating and plagiarism are serious offenses that may be grounds for failing an assignment or the course. Collaboration with others can be an effective way of learning, but the final work must be your own. Whereas general feedback from others about one's work may be sought, extensive editing of papers by anyone other than the student is deemed inappropriate for this course. Information obtained from other sources must be given proper credit. Please review the College policies on the web related to academic integrity: < http://www.ems.psu.edu/students/integrity/statement.html >.
The Meteo 471 Web Pages are maintained by Dr. George Young.
This page was last modified on August 21, 2004.
