Internet Project Introduction
The SME LIGHT Internet Project extends over the entire year. During the
fall quarter, you will set up your web space on leland, introduce
yourself virtually to the class,
and start
making a record of your experiences in your new favorite course, "Light
in the Physical and Biological World." Of course, you can also put
other stuff on your web page . . .
What Will I Put On My Web Page For SME LIGHT?
- Virtual Introduction
The very first thing you will do on your web page is introduce
yourself. Your "bio" should be up on your page by Tuesday,
October 5th. It should include a description of
yourself, your background, and your interests, as well as links to web pages that you like and to your friends'
web pages. It could include pictures too. To see examples, check out mine or Sharon's.
You could also
click on the Last Year's Class menu item and look at the bios of last
year's class.
Please write a bio that you are comfortable having your SME
classmates see. If you wish to keep your bio hidden from
non-SME folks, then you should consider the options given
under the privacy section of this page.
You will need the class username and password to access this
section; check with a TA to obtain these.
- Reflections
The five SME problem sets that you will do this quarter are due on
Thursdays (October 7, October 21, November 4, November 18,
and December 2, to be precise). The three SME web reflections that you will do this
quarter are due on the in-between Thursdays: October 14, October 28,
and November 11. These reflections will be one or two paragraphs in
length. In your reflections you may pose scientific questions
that come up when you think about light, comment upon
scientific articles in newspapers, on the web, or in magazines
that are relevant to the course, or describe scientific phenomena
that you encounter in your life that have some
connection to what we are studying. We will provide articles,
magazines, and online science resources if you wish, or you may
use your own. You can find some online science resources by
clicking on the Science Links menu
item.
The reflections are
meant to be very unstructured and free-form. We are looking for
originality, creativity, and the quality of your thinking,
especially as it is evidenced in the questions you pose. We
have provided some sample reflections in case you want to look at
them, but you should not feel restricted by their formats.
Your first reflection
should be about your personal opinions and your background. Some of the
questions you might explore in the first reflection are the
following. Feel free to write about one or two of them,
or don't write about any of them and instead introduce
your attitude about science in whatever way you see fit.
- What
do you bring to the course and what was your motivation for
choosing it?
- How do you feel about science?
- Do you think science
is necessary? Why or why not?
- If you think science is boring,
what makes it boring?
- How could we make science more fun and
interesting for you this year?
- How does science affect your life?
- What kinds of
things do you hope to learn this year?
- What do you think
"scientific truth" is?
- What are your feelings about the "science" of creationism? (This
debate is very active one at the moment: try searching for "scientific
creationism" on yahoo.)
- Are there issues of scientific ethics that are meaningful to you (the
use of animals in research, toxic waste disposal, designer drugs,
chemical accidents)?
- What are your feelings about the use of statistics in scientific
arguments?
- Who should foot the bill for basic scientific research?
Your second reflection can be a continuation of any of these topics or
something totally new. Check out the sample reflections for examples and/or the science links for extra inspiration if you need it. Finally,
your third reflection will be a response to one of your classmates'
reflections. More details on that to come.
You may organize your reflections in any manner that you choose
(chronological, reverse chronological, grouped by subject, linked
from pictures, etc)
but they must be organized. We may want to use some of
them as topics for class discussion.
- Lab Projects
During the course of the year, you will be expected to summarize and display some of your lab projects on
the web. For example, this quarter, you will build and take photographs
with a pinhole
camera. You will display your photos and camera design on
your web page so that the whole class can see these and
comment on them.
At the end of the quarter, you will write a
short (one-paragraph) description of how you calculated the speed of light using
only a television (I'm not kidding) on your
web-page.
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