HONR228Q: NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND SOCIETY

Course Activities

Lectures will be filled with important and relevant material, including over sixty (60) neat demonstration experiments, review of important concepts of physics, and discussion of the important issues of the day and how these issues are impacted by good science. Therefore it is in your best interest to come to class often. In order to see or review some of these materials, you may refer to the class notes, and to the Physics Lecture-Demonstration Facility web site for information, descriptions, and even mpeg videos of many of the demonstrations that we will use. You are guaranteed to see neat things that you have never seen before and to participate in discussions with points of view very different from those views that are common among individuals with no scientific background, including most representatives of the news media. Part of your grade will be based on your participation in class experimentation as well as discussions of important issues using the science that has been studied.

Important activities relevant to your grade, and not coincidentally to your learning, include:

• reading your textbooks.
• reading a number of pertinent articles from journals and other scholarly sources, and pieces from news sources (handed out at the appropriate times).
• class participation, including debates.
• a mid-term review quiz covering the basic physics content of the course.
• a number of small writing assignments in which you express your educated opinion regarding one of the issues under study.
• a research paper covering one of the special topics discussed throughout the course or related to the course material.
• a final exam.

For questions and comments regarding this web site contact Dr. Richard E. Berg by e-mail.