PHYS178 - Other Worlds: Planets and Planetary SystemsMacquarie University 2008NewsSketchy answers are now available (see below) for assignments 6-10.The 2nd midterm, covering Weeks 8-13, will be held on Tuesday 11 November, 9am-11am in E5A 107 The 2nd observing night has been cancelled due to problems with the focusser for the camera and weather. In lieu of the observing exercise (originally worth 5% of your grade) we shall re-weight the other assessment components by a factor 100/95. Slides for the 2nd half of the unit (week 8 onwards) will appear here as they become available:
Tutorials start up again in Week 9 (ie. Mon/Tue 13/14 October) and run through to include Week 12. Students will be rostered to talk in one of the weeks and are required to attend each week. The talk schedule is here (updated Oct 13). Email Mark (wardle@physics.mq.edu.au) if you are not rostered.... The assessment for the presentations totals 20% of your final mark, broken down as follows:
Midterm 1 (worth 25%) was held on Tuesday 16 September, 9am-11am in E5A 107
The slides for weeks 2 onwards are available as pdf files:
Description
2nd Semester 2008, 3 credit points. Prerequisites and CorequisitesNone! Lecturers
Text booksPrescribed text: Voyage to the Planets by Fraknoi, Morrison & Wolff, (Thomson, 3rd edn).Recommended: The New Solar System, Beatty, Petersen, and Chaikin (Sky Publishing and CUP, 4th edn) Timetable
Students are required to attend one of the tutorial streams. Tutorials begin in week 4. In addition, students are required to attend 2 sessions at the observatory in the first half of the semester. The dates and times of these will be circulated in class. Lecture outline
Chapters refers to those in Fraknoi, Morrison and Wolff. Observing SessionsObserving will be held at Macquarie University Observatory on Culloden Road (see map).Wear warm clothing as you will effectively be outside in the twilight/dark for an hour. The first block of observing sessions ran 5:30pm - 6:30pm on Monday-Thursday evenings in weeks 6 and 7. The decision whether to go ahead or cancel will be made at 4pm each day (or earlier if it is blindingly obvious we'll be clouded/rained out). In principle we should be able to catch Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, and the Moon. Unfortunately at present Saturn is too close to the Sun to be observed. Here's what we got:
The second block will be held in the 2nd half of the semester once we have the focusser for the camera fixed. AssessmentAssignments: There will be 10 mini-assignments based on the lecture material, worth a total of 20%. These will be handed out at the beginning of weeks 2-6 and 8-12 and due at the beginning of the following week. The aim of having many small assignments is to prompt you to be continually engaged with the material. Assignments will be available from this page, as they are set, along with model answers. Observing: Students will attend two evenings at the observatory in the first half of the semester and undertake a short take-home project based on their observations. Information about observing. Presentations: Students will give a 5-10 minute oral presentation on a solar system news item of their choosing, using powerpoint or transparencies. The presentations will be given during the tutorial sessions in the 2nd half of the semester. Advice and assistance with preparation will be available in tutorials earlier in the semester. Midterms: There will be 2 midterms, each worth 25%, held at 9am on Sept 16 and Nov 11 in the usual Tuesday lecture slot. There is no final exam. The weighting of the assessments is as follows:
Online resourcesThere are many, many, useful solar system resources on the internet. Here are some of the ones that I like best.
Other Important InformationGeneric Skills
PlagiarismPlagiarism is defined in the the University handbook ( http://handbook.mq.edu.au/PDFs/2008/ug-plagiarism.pdf) as follows.
"Plagiarism involves using the work of another person and presenting it as one's own.
Any of the following acts constitutes plagiarism unless the source of each quotation or piece of borrowed material
is clearly acknowledged:
A general discussion of plagiarism, definitions, examples, procedures that will be followed by the University in cases of plagiarism, and recommended penalties are available from the Student@Macquarie website at http://www.student.mq.edu.au/plagiarism/. The University expects students to familiarise themselves with the website. Special ConsiderationInformation about special considerations and student services is available at http://www.physics.mq.edu.au/undergrad/services/. Student Liaison CommitteeThe Physics Department values quality teaching and engages in periodic student evaluations of its units, external reviews of its programs and course units, and seeks formal feedback from students via focus groups and the Student Liaison Committee (SLC). Please consider being a member of this committee, which meets once during the semester (lunch provided), with the purpose of improving teaching via student feedback. The class will be asked to nominate two students as representatives for the PHYS 178 unit on the student liaison committee. This nomination process will be conducted during lectures and the lecturer will forward the names to the Head of Department. Summaries of the discussion will be reported to Physics Dept meetings where decisions on actions will be taken. These summaries will also be reported to the SLC as well as being posted. Back to Mark's home page Last modified: 10 November 2008 Author: Mark Wardle (wardle@physics.mq.edu.au). http://www.physics.mq.edu.au/~wardle/phys178.html | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||