IIT office: Life Sciences Room 174
IIT phone: 312-567-5881; fax 312-567-3576; pager 630-905-0534
APS phone: 630-252-0534; fax 630-252-0521
howard@iit.edu
Course Website:
http://csrri.iit.edu/~howard/itp/
Course Textbook: James Trefil, 101 things you don't know about science and
no one else does either. This book consists of 101 two-to-four-page essays about specific topics in
science. The first ten are essential, and I expect everyone to read them in the first few days of class.
We will have two writing assignments associated with those first ten essays. The others will serve as
points of discussion during the semester. By the end of the semester you will have read the whole book,
and I think you'll be glad you had done so.
Part of the purpose of this course is to acquaint you with resources available at IIT. One of the resources of which you should avail yourself is your academic advisor within the department. Those advisors are:
Section Number | Day | Time | Location |
001 | Tuesday | 1350-1530 | Life Sciences 157 |
002 | Thursday | 1000-1115 | Life Sciences 157 |
Tuesday and Thursday: 1125-1300 and 1530-1700 in Life Sciences 174.
Others by appointment (see phone numbers and e-mail addresses)
Note that if you wish to page me, you need to dial the pager number,
wait for the beep, and then punch in the ten-digit number you're calling
from. I sometimes get four- or five-digit pages, and I don't know how
to answer them. Even a seven-digit page is a little ambigiuous, since
I don't necessarily know whether you're paging me from within the
312 area code or from elsewhere.
You can turn most assignments in in hard-copy, as text e-mail, or as attachments to e-mail. The advantage of e-mail is that you don't have to have a working printer in order to send it. If you don't have a computer yourself, you can use the machines at Galvin Library. There's probably only one assignments for which you might find it easier to write your answers in longhand: the assignment due on 22 October. Even there it's pretty easy to do it as a table in a spreadsheet, an HTML table, or even a table in a high-end word processing program like Microsoft Word.
Grade based on:
You should discuss your choice with me before spending a lot of time preparing it, unless you plan to read and review one of the books on the booklist. I rarely veto a proposed topic, but I may be able to offer some productive suggestions. You will turn in a rough draft of your project prior to the final version. I will critique and return the rough draft, and you'll have an opportunity to rectify problems in time for the final version.
Writing is important to this course. I will be grading your written work for content, grammar, logic, rhetoric, and spelling. In addition, we will be assisted in the course by an Undergraduate Writing Assistant, to be chosen soon. He or she will assist in reading over your papers and will work directly with you on style and content. Sometime during the semester we hope that he or she will provide you with some general advice on writing and how to use your writing skills effectively at IIT. We're still working on the details of how our undergraduate writing assistant or assistants will interact with you; stay tuned.
Everyone in the class needs to have read at least one of these books. A brief (less than 1500-word) commentary or review of one of these books is one of the options for the special project for the course, but even if you choose one of the other options for the special project, I expect you to have read one of the books. I have copies of most of them available for you to borrow, but you are also welcome to buy or borrow them. Most are in print and readily available. The list will be provided next week. You may also use a book of your own choosing, provided that you clear it well in advance with me. What I'm looking for are books that illustrate the interface between science and society and between one scientific discipline and another.