Course Syllabus

Instructor: Pete Schwartz, Cal Poly Physics:, Pete's Webpage: pschwart@calpoly.edu, Cell phone - leave a text only if necessary (805-748-6341)

Diversity, Inclusivity, Sustainability: Cal Poly's mission statement includes "...Cal Poly values free inquiry, cultural and intellectual diversity, mutual respect, civic engagement, and social and environmental responsibility." Issues of diversity, inclusivity, and environmental responsibility have recently taken on great importance, globally as well as at Cal Poly. As an instructor, I wish to nurture awareness of how our actions affect others, near and far. I strive to maintain a classroom environment in which meaningful dialogue and debate is encouraged. I welcome individuals of all ages, backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities, national origins, religious affiliations, abilities—and any other visible and non-visible differences. In any decision-making process, we will remind ourselves that our knowledge is not complete and that we can benefit from other perspectives that contrast our own. I believe that good problem solving is inclusive, requiring application of empathy, critical thinking, and ethics to all aspects of the problem-solving process. Lastly, I think it's our

Text: We will use prepared videos and online reading. You are also welcome to buy an energy/society textbook on your own if you like.

Activity Section: You are expected to participate in a two-hour activity each week. Students receive guided, hands-on experience and/or field trips that will be tested on assessments.

Preparing for Class (Videos and Reading) -A Big Part of your Grade: It is imperative that we come to class prepared. You are required to watch videos on PlayPosit and read Perusal before each class. Please prepare on time for every class. For videos, you need to answer all the questions (but you don't need to answer correctly) and watch until the end for full credit. For reading, you have to leave at least three comments (or fewer if it is indicated). If you do 90% of the preparation on time, then your final grade will be calculated as above. However, if your participation is less than 90%, your final grade will be lowered by twice the % your preparation is less than 90%. So if you have 75% participation, your grade will be docked (90% - 75%)*2 = 0.3, which is the difference between an "A" and an "A-" on our 4-point scale. If you don't prepare for class at all, but get an "A" on all your tests, your final grade will be a "C"... so please prepare for class.

Interventions: We will do three self-interventions, where we impose a change on our lives and document the effect. They will each count as two videos.

Exams will be graded A, B, C, D, F, based on ability to communicate knowledge to me. Please notice the inclusion of "I can read and understand", thus you are being graded not on your answer or even your understanding, but on your communication to me.

D: Correctly identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context a minority of the time that I can read and understand.

C: Correctly identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context a majority of the time that I can read and understand; set up computations and express important facts from class material a minority of time that I can read and understand.

B: Consistently correctly identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context that I can read and understand. Be able to draw from examples in the news and personal experience. Set up computations and express important facts from class material a majority of time that I can read and understand. Make correct use of units the majority of the time that I can read and understand.

A: Consistently identify underlying concepts and societal/environmental context that I can read and understand. Consistently draw from examples in the news and personal experience. Set up and solve a majority of computations and express important facts from class material. Consistently use units correctly that I can read and understand.

F: Does not achieve threshold level for D

Class Work: After you are exposed to the material at home via videos and reading, you will work as a group to discuss policy and solve problems in the homework in class. I may collect some of your group work and grade it, but it will not count toward your final grade.

Problem Sets: Usually due Monday in class. These are graded A,B,C,D,F based on the above criteria. The grade is recorded, but will not be used toward your final grade. Hence, the only incentive to do the homework would be to learn the material for the exams and any other internal motivation such as the good times you'll have solving problems with your friends, the resilience you'll gain in the process, and how much you'll impress people at social gatherings when you can kick around concepts like externalities and the relevance of marginal electricity. I encourage you to hand in your problem set as a group. It would be a very good idea to be familiar with class discussions, problem sets, big exams, and activities before each exam.

Group Project: Groups of 3-4 students will do a research project on something related to energy, society, and the environment that interests you. Ideally, you will identify a problem with energy in a home, business, or community and research a solution including the technical, social, and environmental implications. The group must be interdisciplinary meaning there must be one technical student and one nontechnical student in the group. It may involve reading and research, or building and calculating, or doing an experiment or outreach to other people. You will document it with a ~ 5 minute video that you will post on YouTube for the rest of the class to see. In order to receive credit for your project, you need to do your fair share of the work.

Idea Sheets: You are welcome to build your own idea sheet to reference during assessments, provided it has no more than 50 ideas; or 50 combined formulas and statements. I will not provide any formula sheet for tests. I recommend that you start an idea sheet now and add to it as we learn more concepts. Any drawing counts as 5 ideas.

My Commitment to You: I will do my best to provide you with a planned structure, resources, and activities to learn. I will evaluate you only on criteria that I find foundational (to communicate energy concepts and how they affect our lives) allowing you the freedom to learn in a manner that suits you best. I will do my best to understand your professed needs and help you the best way I know.

My Expectations of You: I expect that you will make decisions consistent with your best interest and your values. I also expect that we will all work toward the well being of our community. I expect that you will respect my time and make the best use of our time together by coming to class prepared. My intention is to help you learn from the resources around you: online media, class presentations, and each other. I expect you to record your questions while you study. I expect to start class with questions related to the reading and videos. If you have a question, please ask it after you have addressed the related resource (video or reading) and consulted others in your group.

Competition: Your performance will be graded not against each other, but rated against the criteria established above. I expect the majority of grades to be "A" and "B". However, it is possible that all students earn an "A", and it is also possible that some students fail. Therefore if you help others in your class, it will not be detrimental to your grade. My experience has shown that a positive collaborative attitude is likely to raise everyone’s grade. For reference, last year, 1/3 of the students had a "B", and 2/3 earned an "A"... because by and large, everyone learned most of what was required.