CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH Geography 140-02: Introduction to Physical Geography Fall 2008 (TTh 11:00 p.m. - 12:15 in LA4-100, class #2723)

Instructor Information:

Instructor: Dr. C.M. Rodrigue

E-mail Address: rodrigue@csulb.edu

Home Page: http://www.csulb.edu/~rodrigue

Telephones: (526) 985-4895 or -8432

Office: LA4 106

Mailbox: LA4 106

Office Hours: TTh 3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m., and by appointment

Course Description:

Systematic study of the physical environment including human-environmental interaction, environmental hazards, and natural resources. (CAN GEOG 2).

Course Objectives:

• Develop understanding of the scientific method
• Absorb the geographer's world view: an ability to analyze spatial data, a focus on Planet Earth as the home of humanity, a sensitivity to the human-environment interaction, and a tendency to integrate information on a regional basis
• Become familiar with the natural systems and physical forces shaping the landscapes of the earth
• Become fluent in the terminology and classifications used in physical geography
• Learn about major theories dominating physical geography at this time
• Become aware of the fragility of some of the Earth's landscapes and ecosytems in the face of human alterations
• Appreciate the vulnerability of human society to extreme natural events
• Acquire hands-on skills in using geographic tools of use in analyzing the physical landscape, such as map interpretation, remote sensing, and statistical anaylsis
• Practice critical thinking skills, such as compare and contrast, identifying contradictions or gaps, and evaluating evidence used in argument
• Sharpen professional writing skills
• Practice quantitative skills
• Develop familiarity with Internet resources relevant to physical geography
• Develop proficiency in utilizing the campus library

Required Course Materials:

• Required Text: Ritter, The Physical Environment: An Introduction to Physical Geography, 2nd ed. It is available at:
  • http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/ for FREE
• An e-mail account (a CSULB account is free to you and you can access it conveniently at http://webmail.csulb.edu, but you can set up MyCSULB to redirect e-mail sent to that account over to another account you read more regularly)
• Access to the Internet (whether from home or on campus), so that you can check your e-mail and the course homepage (https://home.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geog140/) regularly (the page is accessible through BeachBoard, too.

Optional Course Materials:

• Supplementary Text: Pidwirny, The Physical Environment: An Introduction to Physical Geography, 2nd ed. It is available at:
  • http://www.physicalgeography.net for FREE
• Optional: Rodrigue, Lecture Notes for GEOG 140 (helpful, but some of the graphics may be 404)

Tentative Course Outline:

Introduction

The science and calling of geography

Definition of geography

The scientific method

Careers in geography

Earth in space

Evolution of the solar system

Size and shape of the planet

The geographic grid

Earth-Sun relationships

Cartographic representation of the earth

Map projections

Map scale

Mapping symbolization

The ocean planet

Composition and structure of the oceans

Ocean circulation

Tides and waves

Atmosphere

Composition and structure

Earth's energy balance

Elements of weather

Temperature

Pressure

Moisture

Storms

Global and local climate patterns

Climate classification systems

Microclimates

Climate change

Natural secular changes in Earth's recent past

Human-induced changes

Evidence and consequences

Biosphere

Basic concepts

Ecosystems and environments

Energy flows and trophic webs

Biogeochemical cycles

Evolution

Life classification

Genetic classification

Structural classification

Global vegetation patterns

Forests

Woodlands

Scrublands

Grasslands

Diversity, stability, and resilience in ecosystems

Invasive exotic species

The Sixth Great Extinction

Consequences of the loss of biodiversity

Soils

Soil properties

Soil formation

Soil classification

Lithosphere

Earth structure and composition

Elements, minerals, and rocks

Planetary structure

The rock cycle

Tectonic processes that tend to increase terrain relief

Plate tectonics

Divergence, subduction, and shearing (and earthquakes)

Elastic and plastic deformation and failure

Folding and faulting

Vulcanism

Gradational processes that tend to reduce terrain relief

Weathering and mass wasting

Fluvial processes

Glacial processes

Æolian processes

Coastal processes

Grading:

Your grade is based on your progress through the course obectives, as shown through several assessment opportunities: weekly quizzes, several labs, one report, weekly Internet journal assignments, and a final. Each of these is worth 20 percent of your overall grade. I will sporadically take note of your participation: If there is a tie between or among you right at a place where I'd like to break the grades, I'll give the person with the best participation record the higher of the two grades. The breakdown of percentage points, then, is:

     13 weekly quizzes:              20%
     13 weekly web journals:         20%
     Research article report:        20%
     Labs:                           20%
     Final exam:                     20%
     TOTAL:                         100%

The quizzes are comprised of "objective" questions and problems (Scantron Form 882). They include material from classroom activities and from the lectures and textbook. The final is comprehensive and will be made up of questions that already appeared on the quizzes.

The report will be about three pages (double-spaced) in length, very carefully edited (your writing mechanics will be assessed, counting for about a third of your points, and my writing standards are available here). This report will be a summary of an approved article from Scientific American, which relates the research in the article to basic concepts introduced in class. Participation includes class attendance; turning in the complete set of labs, tests, reports, and journals; and willingness to contribute to classroom discussion and lab activities in a helpful manner.

I grade on a curve, such that the course GPA is about 2.00. Usually, about 40-50 percent of the students receive the "C" grade, with about 10 percent earning the "A" (or "F" and "WU" grades). I modify this distribution, depending on the quality of a class' performance, compared to previous sections of this course I've taught.

What this means is that, when I turn back assignments and tests, I give you your raw score out of the total possible and let you see how you're doing in relation to your peers. I will eventually convert each raw score into its percentage value to your overall grade. What counts is the steady accumulation of these weighted points, not the letter grade of any one item.

At the end of the semester, I add up all the percentage points for each student and then curve the class at that point. I often don't give letter grades for each item when I hand them back, because letter grades are misleading. Remember: It's the points at the end that are curved into overall grades.

"Curving" is often mysterious to students. It's based on the statistical tendency for any kind of measurement to cover a wide range from high to low, but with the bulk of the measurements covering a tighter range closer to the middle. The reason I use it for grading is that it strikes a nice balance between your abilities as students and my abilities as an instructor: Are my questions too hard (or too easy)? Are you slacking or working really hard? Are you space-cases? Am I simply unable to set up a good learning environment for you? Who knows? So, I split the difference and curve the grades.

To give you a sense of how grades are curved, here is an actual class score distribution from S/07. The average score was 71.6 out of 100.0, and the median or middle score was 71.7, so the C's were centered there. You can see where the breaks were. There were 4 A's (84-87); 6 B's (80-82); 8 C's (62-73); 3 D's (52-57); and 1 F (40). The standard deviation was 12.5 (which defines "normal," "average"), so the C's wound up being roughly + or - 1 standard deviation away from the mean. This particular upper-division class had quite a few really hard-working students, so I set the curve up to give a higher GPA (2.4, rather than 2.0) in recognition of this group of 8 outstanding students without taking it out of the more typical students (4 D's and F's, rather than 8). Now, what would have happened if I didn't curve it and used the 90/80/70/60 rule for dishing out grades? There would have been no A's, 10 B's, only 3 C's, 5 D's and 4 F's, even though I thought the top 4 students were really first-rate students and even though I thought that the folks with scores in the 50s had actually been learning "enough." Maybe my tests were too tough or badly written or something. So, that's why I grade on the curve, and I wanted you to see how it works.

x                                   x            x  x              x
__________________________________________________________________________
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64


          x     x                             x  x x      x    
    x  x  x     x        x                    x  x x      x  x     x   
__________________________________________________________________________
65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Makeup Policy:

There are 13 quizzes and 13 weekly journal assignments. I will only count your 10 best on each. There are, therefore, no makeups on either of these because there's no need. If you wish, you can use up to 3 quizzes or journals to take time to deal with a compelling conflict in schedule. These can include work-related absences, illness, or religious obligations and observances, and they will not impact your grade.

In terms of the report and labs, I will not penalize you for being a day late for these reasons: I need PRIOR notification of these absences, however, so that your attendance and participation will not be penalized. If an unanticipated and serious emergency comes up that precludes such advance notification, I will not penalize you if you bring documentation.

All other makeup requests are subject to denial or serious penalty.

Accessibility:

It is the student's responsibility to inform me at the beginning of the semester about any disability that may require special accommodation, such as taking exams under the supervision of Disabled Student Services. I am fully committed to making physical geography accessible to all and providing accommodations that will help everyone have the same chance at success. I need to know about the issue at the beginning of the semester, though, so that we can work out a mutually reasonable and satisfying accommodation. For more information on campus support services for disabled students, please check out http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/students2/dss.

Electronics:

Cell phones must be turned off while in this class: They are hugely distracting. If your phone goes off in class, I will note it and, if it happens more than once and if you wind up with a score at the boundary between two grades, I'll give you the lower grade.

If you have a serious need to have it on in class (e.g., your significant other is about to have a baby, you have a child in daycare, your parents are gravely ill), let me know ahead of time, keep it the phone on vibrate, and then leave the room to take the call. Make sure those with an emergency need to get hold of you know that it will take you a little longer to answer. With prior approval, I won't "ding" you.

With respect to personal computers, it's okay to use them to take notes. If you are surfing the web, e-mailing, IMing, or listening to music on your i-Pod or similar and creating a distraction to your neighbors, however, you may be subject to the tiebreaker rule above. Your own distraction will guarantee a lower grade, even separate from tiebreaking points!

Withdrawal Policy:

It is the student's responsibility to withdraw from classes. Instructors have no obligation to withdraw students who do not attend classes and, because of the bureaucratic difficulty involved, generally choose not to do so. This often catches transfer students by surprise, because community colleges require instructors to drop non-attending students and provide easy and routine mechanisms for them to do so. If you've been "spoiled" by that system, please be aware that it doesn't work that way here and pay attention to deadlines.

The deadline to withdraw from a class without a "W" showing up on your transcript is 15 September. You can withdraw until 10 p.m. that night through My CSULB. You can withdraw later, until 21 November, but you'll have a "W" show up on your transcript (too many of those look bad) and will lose all or some of your fees. From 21 November through 12 December, you can only withdraw for a documented serious and compelling emergency, with the approval of the dean's office, which expects that you are dropping all of your classes because of the seriousness of the emergency. Note: "I'm not doing well in this class, so I have to drop it" is not regarded as a serious and compelling emergency. Here are the various deadlines for Fall 2008: http://www.csulb.edu/depts/enrollment/dates/registration_fall.html

Cheating and Plagiarism Policy:

Written work that you hand in is assumed to be your own original work unless your source material is documented appropriately. Using the ideas or words of another person, even a peer, or a web site, as if it were your own, without citing, is plagiarism. Simply changing the wording around so that it's not a direct quotation is still plagiarism, if you don't give credit to the source of the ideas. If you use the exact wording of your source, you are entitled to enclose the statement in quotation marks or (with longer quotations) indent and single space it and then cite the source and page. When in doubt, cite. Cheating and plagiarism are very serious academic offenses: They represent intellectual theft. Students should read the section on cheating and plagiarism in the CSULB catalogue, which can be accessed at http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/catalog/2008-2009/academic_information/cheating_plagiarism.html.

Furthermore, students should be aware that faculty members have a range of academic actions available to them in cases of cheating and plagiarism. I do check each paper through various search engines. At a minimum, I will fail a student cheating or plagiarizing on a particular assignment, but only if I think that there was some misunderstanding about what these offenses are; if I feel that the decision to cheat or plagiarize was intentional, I will fail a student in the course. I also may then refer the student to Judicial Affairs for possible probation, suspension, or dismissal. Be safe and follow best practice in citation: It's not much work, and it makes you look like a professional.

When in doubt, please ask me if you think you're getting into a grey area. To learn a little more about plagiarism, take a look at this workshop on ethics in science that several faculty put together: The second section is about plagiarism. https://cla.csulb.edu/departments/geography/gdep/ethics.html.

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Last Updated: 09/01/08