GEOL 105: Violent Earth |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Course OverviewWelcome to GEOL 105: Violent Earth! In this course you will learn that the Earth is a dynamic planet. We will examine the changes occurring on and in the Earth and consider how these changes affect humans. We will look at the causes and effects of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, mass movements, climate change, hurricanes, floods, and meteoric impacts. We will also take a look deep into the Earth's past to learn what we can learn from history. We will pay some extra attention to current and recent events ranging from Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. You will be taking a close look at the threat you face from these potential occurrences. Course ObjectivesThe objectives of this course are threefold:
TextsThere is one text for this course:
Be sure you have the 5th edition. The 6th edition is now available, but we will be using the 5th edition for this course. If you can't find the 5th edition, I'll let you know which chapters to read in the 6th. The editions are basically the same, but some information has been moved around and is now located in a different chapter. The book will serve as our primary resource for the course. The text has a Web site with some extra resources that will be useful to your study. We'll supplement the book with Internet simulations and research. A list of potentially helpful Internet resources will be posted at the Blackboard site. Please e-mail me if you find a site that would be useful to the rest of the class, or you can post it on one of our discussion forums in Blackboard. The text is available from Higher Grounds at the Friday Center. You can order it online, or you can print out the book order form to fax or mail with payment for texts as indicated on the form. Library ResourcesStudents enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. This site includes information on using general online reference works as well as accessing e-reserves and e-journals. If you are off-campus, when you click on a restricted library resource (such as e-reserves), you will be prompted to enter your Onyen. If you are unable to access the library's licensed resources, please contact the proxy team for further assistance. Course Structure and RequirementsThis course is quite different from a traditional class. There are no classroom lectures, but each lesson includes material that I typically cover in my face-to-face classes. You will also read extensively in your textbook and visit some Web sites. In order to do well, you must be self-motivated and proactive. If you are passive in your approach, you will not gain the full benefit of the course. We don't have the luxury of face-to-face communication, but we can communicate with each other effectively using e-mail and our discussion forums. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have a question or need further explanation of a particular concept. I'm happy to help. The structure of the course is similar to a classroom course and includes assignments, short papers, and exams. The grading structure is as follows:
Lesson readings and assignments: The readings will serve as the primary source of information in this course. For every lesson you should expect to spend at least three hours reading (the equivalent of three one-hour lectures) and four to six hours completing the written and discussion forum assignments. You must type your answers to the written assignments in a 12-point, double-spaced font and save them as Word documents. You will then send them as attachments to me by 11:59 pm Eastern time on the due date. Put your first and last name in the body of any e-mail and in any document you send me, and make the subject line of all e-mails read: GEOL 105. Your documents should be named with your last name plus two digits that indicate the order of your submissions. For example, my first submission would be mcdowell01.doc, and my second one would be mcdowell02.doc. I will send you a message letting you know that I've received your assignment within twenty-four hours; if you don't receive a message from me, that means I didn't get your assignment. It's a good idea to send a copy of all e-mails to yourself, so you can be sure the message was sent and that it included the attachment. Discussion forum assignments must be completed by the due dates indicated in the Lesson Schedule. Grades and specific comments and feedback will be returned to you in a timely fashion. I have a very strict policy on deadlines after the first lesson. If your assignment is late, you will receive 40 percent off during the first twenty-four hours; after that you will receive a zero. I would suggest starting your assignments well before the due date so that you can take care of any computer problems that crop up or e-mail me with questions or concerns you might encounter regarding the material. You may want to pretend that assignments are due one or two days before the scheduled due date, so that if something goes wrong you will have an extra day or two to resolve it. Assignments received at 12:02 am are considered late. You do not have to wait until the due date to submit your assignments. They will not be graded until after the due date, so if you change your mind about an answer, just resubmit the entire file before the due date using the same file name. Note: Please save all of your assignments, your sent e-mails, and any e-mails you receive from me. Discussion Forum: Each lesson includes a discussion forum assignment. Most of these assignments will address current events relating to the topic we are studying at the time. You should also use the discussion forums to communicate with your classmates and with me about assignments or questions. This is your forum—the level to which the class interacts is determined by all of you. As long as the content pertains to the course, you may post as much as you like. Current Events Papers: You will turn in a one-and-one-half- to two-page paper discussing a newspaper or journal article about a current natural disaster (current being within the last five years). At least one of your two papers must discuss an article from a journal such as Nature, Science, or the Geological Society of America Bulletin. Your papers should have three parts:
You must also provide a complete reference for the article (title, author name, journal/paper name, volume, and so on). I may select your paper to share with the class. Midterms and final exam: The midterms and final will be sent to you via e-mail on the morning of the specified dates (see Lesson Schedule). All tests must be returned to me by the due date and time. Late exams will not be accepted. The exams will consist primarily of short answer and essay questions similar to your lesson assignments. They will be open-book, open-note, and open Internet, but you may not consult your classmates or students in completing the exams. The work must be your own. Assignment expectations: You are expected to do your own work in all aspects of this course. Cheating and plagiarism will be taken very seriously, and those suspected of either will be referred to the UNC-Chapel Hill Honor Council. Make sure that all assignments are in your own words. Do not copy from the text, the Internet, other students, or other sources. Avoid close paraphrasing, and don't rely on the structure of the text. If you use the Internet or other texts, please cite them in your work. You may use no more than one direct quote per assignment. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with the UNC-Chapel Hill Honor Code. Teachers want you to "put it in your own words" not because we are expecting you to do it better than the original author, but because being able to put it in your own words is a reflection of how well you understand the material. Course MechanicsBlackboardCourse discussion forums are accessed through a software package called Blackboard, and you will need to login to Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only Name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password. There is a link to the Blackboard site in the gray navigation bar at the top of every page in this course. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to log in to Blackboard. Click on the "GEOL 105" link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left taking you to the Discussion Forums. If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:
E-mails regarding the course will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address (the one that appears when you post to the discussion forum). Off-campus users can access their UNC mail using Webmail. You can have your Onyen e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward email” at the Onyen Web site. Please also notify Janice Durham at the Friday Center of the change. If you use a filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from me, the course listserv, or Friday Center staff. Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses “blind carbon copy” to protect privacy. We recommend that you use your UNC Onyen e-mail account rather than forwarding to Hotmail for this course. Submitting AssignmentsIt is extremely important for you to save copies of any work you send to your instructor via e-mail. If your instructor doesn't receive your work, you must have a duplicate copy, indicating the date sent, to prove that you submitted the assignment on time. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your sent e-mails, as there is no way to guarantee that any e-mail message will be delivered. Please check your e-mail software to see how it manages sent and saved messages. Some software automatically deletes messages one month after they have been sent; others only save messages if they are filed in folders; others save messages received but not those sent. You may need to send yourself a copy of your e-mailed assignment at the same time you send it to your instructor, or you may need to print a copy of the e-mail message and any attachments to keep in your paper files. No matter how your system works, make sure you know how to save a copy of all work that you submit to your instructor and that you save the copy for several months beyond the end of the course. And finally, remember to keep your in-box cleaned out—a full in-box will not accept new messages. Other QuestionsContact your instructor with questions regarding the content of the course and your progress. There is an e-mail link to your instructor at the top of every lesson page. Please include "GEOL 105" in the subject line of your e-mail. Contact your Instructional Designer at the Friday Center about problems with this Web site, including bad links. If you have any logistical questions as you work through the course (enrollment, Onyen, credits, withdrawal, and so on), contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669). Lesson Schedule
Honor CodeRemember that as a student of UNC-Chapel Hill, you are bound by the University's Honor Code, which states that "It shall be the responsibility of every student at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to obey and support the enforcement of the Honor Code, which prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing when these actions involve academic processes or University students or academic personnel acting in an official capacity." All graded academic work must include a pledge comprised of the following: "No unauthorized assistance has been received or given in the completion of this work." An especially serious Honor Code violation is plagiarism. If you have questions, please consult your instructor. Lesson 1 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Course author: Trent McDowell, MS
Current instructor: Trent McDowell, MS
© University of North Carolina
Last modified:
January 22, 2008
Send comments and questions to fridaycenter@unc.edu