Offered via the World Wide Web (3 Credits)

Please read this document carefully. It contains important information concerning this course.

INSTRUCTOR: Mr. Martin Hackworth

OFFICE/PHONE/EMAIL: Department of Physics, PS 117B,  Idaho State University

208-282-4439 (office)  hackmart@physics.isu.edu (email)   

MATERIALS REQUIRED: Meteorology Today, Eight Edition, by  C. Donald Ahrens, 2006, Brooks/Cole (ISBN 0-495-01162-2). Older editions of this book are completely acceptable.

(available by mail through the the Idaho State University Bookstore or any number of online book providers).

You must have your own unique email account in order to submit assignments for this course. Please do not change email during the course of the semester unless absolutely necessary. Your ISU account is the best account to use for this course.

The following supplemental materials are recommended but not required:

Highly recommended:

Understanding Weather & Climate, Second Edition, by Edward Aguardo and James E. Burt, 2000, Prentice-Hall (ISBN 0-13-027394-5)

Weather and People, by Morgan and Moran, 1997, Prentice-Hall (ISBN 0-02-383811-6)

If you like lots of math:

Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers, Second Edition, by Roland B. Stull, 2000, Brooks/Cole
(ISBN 0-534-37214-7)

A great supplement to Ahrens:

Meteorology The Atmosphere and The Science of Weather, Fourth Edition, by Joseph M. Moran
and Michael D. Morgan, 1997, Prentice-Hall (ISBN 0-13-266701-0)

Study Guide to Accompany Meteorology The Atmosphere and The Science of Weather

SCHEDULE:
Assignment	Last date/time to submit a quiz   (Monday morning 8 a.m.)
1. Course Introduction The Earth and its Atmosphere	1/21
2. Energy: Warming the Earth and the Atmosphere	1/28
3. Seasonal and Daily Temperatures	2/4
4. Light, Color and Atmospheric Optics	2/11
5. Atmospheric Moisture	2/18
6. Condensation: Dew, Fog and Clouds	2/25
7. Stability and Cloud Development	3/3
8. Precipitation	3/10
9. The Atmosphere in Motion: Air Pressure, Forces and Wind	3/17
10. Wind: Small Scale and Local Systems	3/24
11. Wind: Global Systems	4/7
12. Air Masses and Fronts	4/14
14. Middle Latitude Storms	4/21
16. Thunderstorms and Lightning	4/28
17. Tornadoes and Hurricanes
* Note: Exercises 13, 15 (and probably 17) will be skipped this semester
Final Exam	due by 3 p.m. 5/8

About The Course

This web based course is not for everyone. You must be comfortable with computers and the internet in order to succeed in this course. It may be necessary for you to make changes in your browser and email programs to submit materials for grading. You will, for the most part, only be able to interact with the instructor online for help with questions or problems that may arise.

You must read the course introduction, read, sign, and turn in disclosure form before submitting your first assignment.

HOW IT WORKS: Course assignments are posted at the beginning of each semester on this web site. All of the material that is needed for the course is available many weeks in advance of the scheduled time for each unit. You access the notes and web links and read the associated chapters in the accompanying texts. There are questions for review in each unit. Each week you take a quiz that is submitted via email by your browser. All quizzes are graded and returned, generally within 72 hours to the email address from which they originated (if you submit a quiz and it is not returned within a few days it means that it was not received). It is your responsibility to contact the course instructor in a timely manner to resolve any issues resolving quiz submission. Please feel free to email to ask if your quiz has been received if you have any doubts about the submission process (check the sent mail folder in you email client if you are unsure than your browser sent the quiz). You should not work more than a few weeks ahead of the schedule without the consent of the instructor. Please do not wait until the last minute to submit quizzes or other assignments. The deadlines listed in the syllabus (some of which occur on holidays) represent the last possible moment the assignment will be accepted. You are free to submit a quiz anytime in advance of the deadline. Generally speaking, quizzes and other assignments received after the deadline will not be accepted.

Although the course instructor will be happy to assist you upon request, it is ultimately your responsibility to resolve basic email and browser issues in order to participate in this course. If you are a technophobe, luddite, etc., or in any way uncomfortable with tackling challenges associated with electronic learning this course will not work for you. The instructor is in no way obligated to accept late work for any reason. Please make sure that you submit all of your quizzes and assignments before the due dates and follow up to insure that they have been received (until you are comfortable with the process).

Collaboration is strictly forbidden in this course. You are not to discuss assignments, grading, policies, procedures or e anything else concerning this course with anyone except me. You may not submit an assignment from another student's computer or userid. You are not to consult with anyone else who has taken this course in the past. To make it simple, everything you submit in this course must be your own, original work done by yourself without any collaboration whatsoever.

GRADING: Your final grade will be computed from the following sources: weekly quizzes and assignments will account for 60%, a photographic portfolio will account for 10%, and the final exam will be worth 30%.   Grades will be assigned according to the following standard scale (approximately):

You are expected to work independently on the quizzes and other assignments for this course. If you consult with anyone other than myself on quizzes or other assignments it constitutes an act of academic dishonesty. Being in possession of old quizzes or any materials from someone else who has taken this course constitutes an act of academic dishonesty.

There is no time limit on quizzes once you have begun taking one. Please be aware of the quiz schedule and plan ahead to insure that you complete each quiz on time. Late quizzes will generally not be accepted.

Quiz questions come primarily from the textbooks for the course. But you will find the links and notes included with each section useful in preparing for weekly quizzes and the final exam. Because I cannot answer questions pertaining to quiz material (see above), you should ask any questions about a unit before beginning the quiz for that unit. The best strategy for quiz preparation is to be sure that you can answer the practice questions in each unit before beginning the quiz. There is no guarantee that you will find an exact answer to every quiz question in the text, links or notes. Some quiz questions are designed to have you consider information from several sources and formulate an answer on your own.

Quizzes consist of T/F, multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer/essay questions. With the exception of essay questions all correct responses are generally worth one point. Essay questions vary in value. To receive full credit on essay questions you must submit an original, succinct answer. You are not to quote or paraphrase the text (or any other source for that matter) in response to an essay question. Formulate your response in your own words. The use of quoted or paraphrased material is inappropriate in answering short answer/essay questions in this course.

Due to the unique nature of the evaluation process in this course, late quizzes or other assignments cannot be accepted unless special arrangements are made (generally in advance).  Occasionally a quiz that was submitted before the due deadline arrives after the deadline due to the vagaries of travel through cyberspace. In this event you should be prepared provide physical verification that the quiz was submitted well in advance of the deadline. It is imperative that you plan ahead and are prepared to meet all deadlines on time. If you are unfamiliar with email, how to send documents over the web, don't like troubleshooting email and browser issues, or are just uncomfortable with using the internet you should probably not take this course. Note that by design the consequences of missing a single quiz are small and you shouldn't worry overly about it.

A portfolio of 20 photographs, due April 15th  is required for this course. These photographs may be of any weather related phenomena. All that you have to do for the portfolio is to take 20 unique photographs and send along a key indicating what they are. The easiest way to put together this portfolio is with a digital camera. If you do not have access to a digital camera, use a scanner to scan your prints in jpeg format, attach a label indicating what each photo is, what time it was taken, etc., and email the entire portfolio to me when it is complete. Check the Photo Gallery for examples. Be sure to shoot, if you are using a digital camera, or scan your photographs and submit them as medium resolution jpeg files (no more than 231 KB or 1536 x 1024 pixels). If you are unsure as to how to scan (digitize) your photographs please contact me the first week of class. The photos that you submit will be used for building the photo gallery on this site and become the property of the designer of this course upon submission. You are free to keep copies of you photos but the originals will be used on our website. Your portfolio will be graded on completeness, correctness, and quality. You should begin working on this portfolio immediately. All of the photographs you submit should be shot this semester. Please do not submit photos embedded in Powerpoint or Word documents.

If you have gotten this far, are registered for the course, and haven't been scared off you are ready to begin! Follow the links to Exercise 1 and jump in. Good luck, and enjoy. We are here to help any way that we can. Cheers!