J. Trefil and R. Hazen, The Sciences: An Integrated Approach, 1st Ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995

R. Lewin, Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction, 4th Ed., Blackwell Science, 1999

A beige course syllabus booklet: A prepared a course syllabus booklet with a lecture schedule and outlines, lab exercises and supplemental readings is available in the bookstore. Be sure to bring this document with you to both lecture and discussion sessions. You find it helpful for taking notes in lecture, and we will use it for several lab projects.

This course, extended through two semesters, studies the emergence of the human species in the course of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution and assesses the theoretical and practical impact of the natural sciences on the human situation.

Examinations: There will be two examinations, and each will count 20% of your final grade. These will be comprehensive multiple-choice exams and will be given at the lecture time in Shen Auditorium. Questions could come from both lectures and reading assignments.

Quizzes: There will be a short (5-10 minute) quiz once a week. Each quiz will be over material covered in the most recent lecture(s). Altogether the quizzes will count 20% toward your final grade. There will be NO make-up for any quiz. To compensate for any excusable absences, I will drop the lowest TWO quiz scores. The main purpose of quizzes is to encourage you to keep up with the course, whereas an ulterior motive is to help ensure your discussion session attendance.

Oral Presentation: A 10-20 minute presentation to the class of a topic relevant to either biological or cultural evolution or some environmental issue will count 15% toward your final grade. I will give details about this requirement in the first or second week of the class.

Lecture Attendance: See Lecture Attendance Policy section heading below.

Writing: In order to satisfy the collegial writing requirement of 10 - 15 pages, you will have writing assignments of two types - lab reports and article summaries. The requirements for each follow.

You are required to do write three one page summaries of articles from scientific magazines or journals. Each must be typed and should be one page if single spaced and two pages if double spaced. Each should contain the following bibliographic information at the top of the page:

Author, "Title", Name of Publication, date of publication, page numbers

Together they count 15% of your final grade. Scientific American, Nature, National Geographic, Science, New Scientist, and Astronomy are good examples of possible publications to use. You may also use essays by Stephen J. Gould on evolution. I will explain in class where such essays can be found. The article summaries are due dates are specified on the schedule at the end of this syllabus.

We will attempt to integrate hands-on and visual experiences into the course by having relevant laboratory exercises nearly every week during the discussion session. If you miss class the day we do a lab, it’s up to you to make arrangements to make it up. You will be required to turn in answers to questions in the form of a typed report for each lab. I will give more details about a particular lab and what I want you to turn in the day we do the lab. Some important notes regarding these labs:

• Lab reports will together count 10% of your final grade.
• Lab reports are part of the collegial writing agreement. They will be graded like term papers for proper spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.
• You may work together in groups of two or three on a lab, but - each person must turn in her/his own report.
• Unless otherwise specified, lab reports are due in discussion session the week following the lab.

Late assignments will be penalized 10 percentage points for each day late. For example, if the assignment is due Tuesday, and you turn your paper in the following Friday (so it would be three days late), you will be penalized 3 X 10% = 30%.

Please turn in all late assignments to my office - slip the assignment under the door if I’m not there. Please do NOT put late assignments in my core building mailbox!