Credit Hours: 4
Instructor: Professor Tom
Paradis
Department: Geography, Planning and Recreation at
Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5016
Email: Use WebCT's Mail and your NAU "dana"
account only.
Phone: 928-523-5853
Building: Room 322 Peterson Hall
None. This course is approved at NAU as an introductory lab-science course that satisfies a lab-science liberal-studies requirement. A background in basic math and science is helpful, along with a strong curiosity about the earth's natural environment.
This course provides an introduction to weather and climate systems, water and the hydrosphere, geomorphology and landforms, and biogeography of plant communities and habitats. The course presents a global perspective, with a distinct emphasis on the North American continent and a specialized focus on the American Southwest and Colorado Plateau.
Go to this link to see the detailed instructions for assignments and expectations. This page will also be available in the "getting started" section of WebCT when you enter the course. You will need to understand the information on this page THOROUGHLY before beginning the course.
Geographers focus on three basic, but vital, questions to conduct their research and to understand the earth's physical and human processes:
(1) What is where? Describes
patterns and processes involving planet earth and its physical and human environments.
(2) Why is it there? Explains
those patterns and processes through a variety of research methods and theoretical
perspectives.
(3) So what? Investigates the implications of these
patterns and processes and how they impact the physical and human environment
for better or for worse.
EXAMPLE:
Describe the pattern of
volcanoes in northern Arizona and map them.
Explain why the volcanoes erupted there and
not somewhere else, and explain their general volcanic characterisics such as
size, shape, and age.
Investigate the implications of having these volcanoes
located in northern Arizona for nearby towns such as Flagstaff. How do they
influence economic activities (recreation such as skiing and hiking), cultural
identity (how Flagstaff residents and businesses use the mountain imagery to
promote their community), and natural hazards (such as flooding from mountain
streams, risks of future eruptions).
Learning outcomes (or goals) specify the ways you should be able to use what you learned by the completion of the course. The five learning outcomes for this course (below) therefore reflect the importance of incorporating all three questions of geographic inquiry discussed above.
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
This is a 5-week, intensive introduction to physical geography. As a web course, there is no in-class requirement, as all assignments and information are transferred over the web between yourself and the professor. This includes all lab exercises and other course assignments. The course is organized into 6 general modules and 24 specific topics, each topic corresponding roughly to a 1.5 hour in-class lecture. The text and graphics included within each topic thus serve as the substitute for traditional in-class lectures. Some topics are more involved than others. For each topic, you will be required to complete the basic "lecture" reading within each topic, 10 lab assignments consisting of questions about relevant current-event topics and environmental issues, six major reading assignments and question sets from the online textbook, and a few "discussions" for which you will post your response to the class. You should be aware that, despite the course's introductory format, it will require multiple hours of work to complete each topic and its respective assignments for the course. We will complete 4-credit hours of course material in 5 weeks! Please be sure that you are committed to this workload requirement before beginning the course.
Your textbook for the course is online and free of charge. We will use it as a supplement to the lecture material, for you to gain a better understanding of course topics as necessary. There are no materials that you need to purchase for this course, though a decent internet connection is essential to download text web pages and illustrations. There are a LOT of illustrations (this course set records for the number of illustrations in a web class at NAU!), so your ability to download and save this information is vital. Some of the maps and web sites will take a lengthy time to download from a standard modem without DSL or other high-speed connection, but you can still do it with patience. For text files, you are highly recommended to use Microsoft Word, as Word Perfect does not work. If necessary, you can send files in rtf format (richtext), but that's not my first preference.
Each of the 6 modules will be explained within the module content pages. You will find the specific course content and instructions for the topics within the modules. The 6 modules are as follows:
A total of 600 points may be earned in this course. Grades are based on a straight scale (i.e. 90% is an A, 80% is a B, etc.) Importantly, there will be few extra credit assignments and NO grading curves, so all of you will have an equal opportunity to earn the grade of your dreams. My suggestion: Do it right the first time, as there will be no second chance this term. I encourage you to seek out my help and/or guidance regarding course material, etc. Here's the breakdown for the course:
Labs and Discussions together comprise 25%, or 1-credit hour lab portion of
the course.
Any reading assignments, lab assignments, or discussion posts not submitted before the date and time due will have 25% reduced from the assignment's value if it is less than 24 hours late. If assignments are more than 24 hours late, you will lose an automatic 50% of the point value for that assignment, regardless of when you submit it beyond the 24 hours. Thus, you can still submit materials beyond the deadline (except for quizzes and exams), but you can only obtain a portion of total credit.
As a student, you are responsible for understanding and abiding by all NAU regulations as found on the link above (click on the heading above).