Most people wouldn't consider a lab course when looking at easy classes. However, Intro Laboratory Module in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO 213) is a very easy and laid back course. You have to attend a four hour lab every week, but most labs actually end in about two to three hours, so the course isn’t too time consuming. The only other assignment is a series of short answer questions due on Owl-Space the day after the labs.
The labs usually consist of going outside to test out hypotheses about various topics. The first lab is about observing squirrel behavior. Literally all you have to do is go outside and watch squirrels for a couple of hours. The second lab is about requires students to get dirty looking for isopods in the dirt. Other labs include counting organisms found in leaf litter, observing two fire ant colonies interact with one another, and taking a trip to Brazos Bend State Park to observe the local flora and fauna and to collect specimens for further analysis. All the labs are straightforward, and do not require too much effort. People without a background in science should still be able to understand all of it. The labs can be fun if you are interested in nature. Also, the professor is clearly passionate about the subject and the work, and you can learn a lot from him.
In the past couple of years, the course has undergone a few major revisions aimed at improving it. The course is still constantly changing, so I cannot guarantee that any of what I write about will still be true if you decide to take this course sometime in the future. People who were unfortunate enough to take it last semester had to write papers on each lab every week, but after far too many complaints, the workload has been dramatically reduced. The Esther statistics for Fall 2010 will not be representative of how the class currently is. Statistics from Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 should be more reflective of the true nature of this course.
The main downside is that time commitment involved. It is only a one credit hour class, but you have to spend probably three to five hours a week either in lab or doing the work. This class isn’t an easy A because you don’t have to do anything; it is an easy A because the amount of thought and effort required for the work is very low, and getting an A is guaranteed for the people that want it.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Introduction to the Study of Religion - RELI 101
This week, I had a discussion about Introduction to the Study of Religion (RELI 101) with a friend, Adi Sirkes. I have actually had four people tell me that I had to add this to my blog, so I'm fairly confident that this class would be good for everybody.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Exploration of the Solar System - ASTR 202
Although I am currently taking Exploration of the Solar System (ASTR 202), I can already safely say that this is one of the easiest classes at Rice. This class requires almost no work at all. There are weekly problem sets, two tests, a project, and a paper. The best part is that attendance is not a part of the final grade, and is definitely not required to get a good grade on assignments or tests.
The first lecture I attended was spent learning basic “physics.” He called it physics, but I don’t think anyone at Rice can in good conscience call it physics. He actually spent a good ten minutes explaining the distance formula. No, not the real distance formula, but the formula distance equals velocity multiplied by time (d=vt). He then gave us two examples in order to make sure we understood it. “If a train is traveling at one hundred miles per hour for three hours, how far has it traveled?” This lecture was fairly representative of all the lectures that I have thus far attended.
The weekly problem sets require about an hour of work at most. I usually do the problem sets while sitting in class pretending to listen to the professor. Most people get perfect or close to perfect scores on the problem sets. The professor even gives the occasional extra credit opportunity on problem sets, allowing people to earn back any points they may have missed, plus more. I have well over a 100 average on my problem sets, and I spent no more than half an hour on any one of them.
We’ve have only had one test so far. Seven people, out of eighteen in the class, scored higher than 100 on the test. The test was really a joke. The professor gave us a review sheet of thirty questions that we would need to know for the test. Then, he allowed us to make a one-sided, hand-written “cheat” sheet that we could use for the test. All I needed to do to study for the test was summarize some of the questions on my cheat sheet, and then add a few formulas from his lecture slides. The test consisted of true/false questions, multiple choice questions, a few mathematical calculations, and ten points of extra credit. Don’t be discouraged from taking this course if you are not good at math. The course syllabus emphasizes the fact that you do not need any calculus knowledge for the class, but a more accurate description would have been “only high school algebra knowledge required.”
The project for this year is to create a playlist of twelve astronomy related songs, and describe how they are related to astronomy. The professor plays songs from previous year’s projects before every class, and from those examples it seems any song would work as long as a dubious connection to astronomy can be made up.
The final assignment seems like the only real assignment in the class. We have to write a 900 word paper about our views on either life on Mars or global warming. However, the professor emphasized that he would not be grading us on our viewpoints or on how well we wrote the paper, but rather on how we can support our views with basic science. This paper will probably require a bit of work, but the grading seems like it will be no worse than any other assignment that I have done so far.
The first lecture I attended was spent learning basic “physics.” He called it physics, but I don’t think anyone at Rice can in good conscience call it physics. He actually spent a good ten minutes explaining the distance formula. No, not the real distance formula, but the formula distance equals velocity multiplied by time (d=vt). He then gave us two examples in order to make sure we understood it. “If a train is traveling at one hundred miles per hour for three hours, how far has it traveled?” This lecture was fairly representative of all the lectures that I have thus far attended.
The weekly problem sets require about an hour of work at most. I usually do the problem sets while sitting in class pretending to listen to the professor. Most people get perfect or close to perfect scores on the problem sets. The professor even gives the occasional extra credit opportunity on problem sets, allowing people to earn back any points they may have missed, plus more. I have well over a 100 average on my problem sets, and I spent no more than half an hour on any one of them.
We’ve have only had one test so far. Seven people, out of eighteen in the class, scored higher than 100 on the test. The test was really a joke. The professor gave us a review sheet of thirty questions that we would need to know for the test. Then, he allowed us to make a one-sided, hand-written “cheat” sheet that we could use for the test. All I needed to do to study for the test was summarize some of the questions on my cheat sheet, and then add a few formulas from his lecture slides. The test consisted of true/false questions, multiple choice questions, a few mathematical calculations, and ten points of extra credit. Don’t be discouraged from taking this course if you are not good at math. The course syllabus emphasizes the fact that you do not need any calculus knowledge for the class, but a more accurate description would have been “only high school algebra knowledge required.”
The project for this year is to create a playlist of twelve astronomy related songs, and describe how they are related to astronomy. The professor plays songs from previous year’s projects before every class, and from those examples it seems any song would work as long as a dubious connection to astronomy can be made up.
The final assignment seems like the only real assignment in the class. We have to write a 900 word paper about our views on either life on Mars or global warming. However, the professor emphasized that he would not be grading us on our viewpoints or on how well we wrote the paper, but rather on how we can support our views with basic science. This paper will probably require a bit of work, but the grading seems like it will be no worse than any other assignment that I have done so far.
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