Students working together on a lab activity.

Tentative Lab Syllabus: Geology 1405 The Dynamic Earth

We reserve the right to revise this syllabus as necessary throughout the semester. Notice of revision will generally be given via email broadcast to registered students in the course.
Revised 22 January 2019

Important note: This syllabus is not a contract.

The lab homepage is http://croninprojects.org/Vince/PhysGeoLab/

The laboratory teachers for this course are

• Marilyn Wisler (Marilyn_Wisler1@baylor.edu)
  — Tuesday, 12:30-2:30 PM (section A)
  — Thursday, 12:30-2:25 PM (section E)
• Alden Netto (Alden_Netto1@baylor.edu)
  — Tuesday, 3:30-5:30 PM (section B)
• Zequn Wu (Zequn_Wu1@baylor.edu)
  — Wednesday, 12:20-2:15 PM (section C)
  — Wednesday, 2:30-4:25 PM (section D)

All email communication to your teachers concerning this course should originate from your Baylor email account.

Purpose Of This Lab

The laboratory portion of this course provides us with an opportunity to engage in active learning, and to get a close-up look at minerals, rocks, fossils, maps, and other materials that are important to the study of physical geology. This course overall is an attempt to explore and summarize the best scientific understanding of Earth's ~4.6 billion year age, evolution, composition, and major dynamic systems, as that understanding exists in the geoscience community based on published peer-reviewed scientific literature. We want you to become literate with respect to the Earth sciences (http://www.earthscienceliteracy.org).

Your goal should be mastery of the material that you are asked to learn in this course. This will take 1-2 hours of work for every lab meeting. If you are not willing to devote that amount of time to this course, you will not learn the material and, hence, there is little point in your taking this course. You need to commit to doing good work and learning the course material.

Required Book

Required lab-section text: The paper copy of Cronin and Tasa [editors], 2017, AGI/NAGT Laboratory Manual in Physical Geology [11th edition]: Pearson, 426 p.

You MUST PRINT your name LEGIBLY on the inside cover of your lab book.

About Lab

• Your safety during each and every laboratory session is your responsibility alone.
• The Laboratory Is A Required Part Of This Course. Your attendance at each lab session is mandatory, and there are no make-up labs.
• By college policy, you must attend no less than 75% of the lab meetings in this class. In order to be considered "present" for purposes of this rule, you must be present for the entire lab session until dismissed by the lab teacher. Students who do not attend at least 75% of the labs will receive a grade of "F" for the course.
• All labs are two hours long, so do not plan anything until after the lab is scheduled to be over.
• Labs begin the week of January 16-18, and take place on the fourth floor of the Baylor Science Building, room E-406.
• Dr. Cronin is in charge of the content of the laboratory sections in this course. Please tell him if you are having content- or TA-related problems (Vince_Cronin@baylor.edu). If you have other problems related to the labs, contact Sharon Browning (Sharon_Browning@baylor.edu).
• No completed lab activities will be accepted that are not submitted on the relevant pages torn from the lab book. No photocopied activity sheets will be accepted. Ergo, the lab book is absolutely required.
• A pre-lab series of questions might be asked to assess whether you have studied the introductory material for the lab. The pre-lab quiz, if conducted, will occur at the beginning of the lab session, so it is important for you to get to lab on time.
• A post-lab series of questions will be asked during the last 10 minutes of the lab period to see if you have understood the main points in the lab.
• Additional information about the lab will be posted via http://CroninProjects.org/Vince/PhysGeoLab/

Approximate Lab Schedule

* These items are in addition to your lab book, a pencil, a ruler with a metric scale (cm, mm), and an inexpensive scientific calculator (e.g., Texas Instruments TI-30Xa Scientific Calculator, or Casio FX-260SOLAR11 Scientific Calculator — both available at big-box stores for ~$10 or less) or a sufficiently charged smartphone with a calculator app.

** A drafting compass is a device for drawing circles.

Other Important Information

• Cell phones, pagers, audio/video recorders, text-messaging devices, audio players (e.g., iPods...), cameras, laptop computers, tablet computers and other recording, communication or keyboarding devices must be turned off and put away during all quizzes. Their use at other times might be allowed, at the discretion of the lab teacher. Courtesy and common sense dictate that they should not be used if they are a distraction to any other member of the class. So that there is no misunderstanding, Facebook and Twitter and other social media apps/sites are preemptively defined as a distraction during class.
• No food or beverage is permitted in the laboratory room.
• Disruptive behavior, as judged by lab teacher, will not be tolerated in the lecture or the lab sessions. The laboratory teachers reserve the right to require any student to leave the laboratory room because of disruptive behavior.
• You should bring a basic scientific calculator to every lab session. Adequate scientific calculators that can perform arithmetic and trigonometric (e.g., sin, cos, tan) calculations and basic statistics of one variable (mean, standard deviation) cost as little as $10 to $15, and need not have any graphing or programming capabilities. You are assumed to meet the national mathematics standards that have been established for graduating high-school students (e.g., http://www.nctm.org/standards).
• You must bring your lab book and a pencil to lab every session.
• Homework handed-in late and missed in-lab assignments will result in a grade of 0% for that assignment. No make-up opportunities will be offered for missed in-class assignments or assignments (i.e., pre-lab quizzes, post-lab quizzes, homework, other assignments).
• All lab quizzes are closed-book, closed-notes exercises. Use of cell phones, personal digital assistants, or other resources that can facilitate cheating is not permitted during exams. People who are suspected of cheating during the lab quizzes will be subject to University disciplinary proceedings.
• Correct use of standard English is a valid grading criterion throughout the lecture and laboratory sections of this course.

Grading

The lab grade is based on the quality of your work on laboratory activities, beginning/end-of-lab and midterm quizzes, and any homework that might be assigned. The lab grade is reported to the faculty member who teaches your lecture section as a percentage score out of a possible 100% perfect score. The lab grade comprises 25% of the total course grade, and the lecture part of the course supplies the remaining 75% of the grade.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity refers to the "integral" quality of the search for knowledge that a student undertakes. The work a student produces, therefore, ought to be wholly his or hers; it should result completely from the student's own efforts. A student will be guilty of violating academic integrity if he/she...
(a) knowingly represents work of others as his/her own,
(b) uses or obtains unauthorized assistance in the execution of any academic work, including possessing or using a stolen copy of one of Professor Cronin's exams, or
(c) gives fraudulent assistance to another student.
After McGlynn, A.P., 2001

Care of Lab Resources

In the spirit of being a good steward of university resources (and Professor Cronin's personal property), you must be careful not to damage or abuse samples, maps, models, reserve materials, or other resources provided for your use in this course.

Students Needing Academic Accommodations

Any student needing academic accommodations as documented through the Office of Access and Learning Accommodation (OALA) should inform their lecture teacher and lab instructor immediately at the beginning of the semester. Required documentation and information regarding accommodations is available at the Paul L. Foster Success Center, 1st floor on the East Wing of Sid Richardson, (254) 710-3605. Accommodations available in the Dynamic Earth laboratory are not unlimited, and do not include taking quizzes or exams at an OALA-administered site outside of the Geosciences Department.

Issues Related to Title IX

Baylor University asserts that it does not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender in any of its education or employment programs and activities, and it does not tolerate discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex or gender. If you or someone you know would like help related to an experience involving sexual or gender-based harassment, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, stalking, intimate partner violence, or retaliation for reporting one of these type of prohibited conduct, please contact the Title IX Office at (254) 710-8454 or report online at www.baylor.edu/titleix.

The Title IX Coordinator for Baylor University is Kristan Tucker. The Title IX office understands the sensitive nature of these situations and can provide information about available on- and off-campus resources, such as counseling and psychological services, medical treatment, academic support, university housing, and other forms of assistance that may be available. Staff members at the office can also explain your rights and procedural options if you contact the Title IX Office. You will not be required to share your experience.

If you or someone you know feels unsafe or may be in imminent danger, please call the Baylor Police Department (254-710-2222) or Waco Police Department (9-1-1) immediately. For more information on the Title IX Office, the Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment and Interpersonal Violence policy, reporting, and resources available, please visit www.baylor.edu/titleix.

For an overview of Title IX, read the description available from Wikipedia.org at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX

For answers to frequently asked questions about geology and science, go to http://www.baylor.edu/Geology/index.php?id=26719

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All of the original content of this website is © 2019 by Vincent S. Cronin