Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.
The following questions were asked on reading textbook chapters and previewing presentations on the origin of life, a "Here Is Today" timeline, LEGO® washing tips and the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Selected/edited responses are given below.
Describe something you found interesting from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
"The Miller-Urey Experiment, it explained how how organic compounds could have formed."
"The possibility of other life in the universe."
"Just the concept of time and duration that can view how old things are."
"How there may be life beyond our planet Earth, this topic really interests me. The fact that we may be wondering if there is life beyond us and elsewhere someone or something may be wondering the same thing."
"The debate and various explanations of life's origins is always really interesting to me. It's a wide and mind-blowing kind of a subject to talk about, so that's always fun."
"The Drake equation seems interesting to me just because owe can have factors can be used to find many things about the Milky Way."
"Knowing about the origins of life; I thought it was cool how we it started off with molecules and we end up being ourselves."
"Something I found interesting was the fact that we know that the fist single-cell organism dates back around 3.4 billion years ago. It amazes me how were able to detect our cells ages so far back!"
"The idea that alien life is really out there is so cool cuz aliens are cool in themselves."
"I really liked the hereistoday.com website. It was interesting to see the evolution of life on a timeline."
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"So is there life on other planets?"
"Something I found confusing about the reading was the Chilbolton reply--I'm not too sure if it's be plausible or not."
"The process of evolution and secondly if there are truly other lives in the universe."
"Lengths of time for significant events to occur on Earth--my confusion should be evident due to my answers to the following questions."
"The Drake equation--I found it confusing because I suck at math and I panicked."
"Something I found confusing is exactly how they're able to detect cells that far back and how they determine how old it was."
"How do we know the crop circles aren't a hoax?"
"The Drake equation was a bit confusing because there was a lot to it and there isn't a way to find a for sure answer yet."
"The Drake equation wasn't confusing it just has so many parts that make it up, and it doesn't even have an answer to the equation."
"The Drake equation. Mixing math with science is not my thing!"
Briefly describe a difference between life and non-living things.
"Living things breath oxygen, use energy, reproduce probably. Non-living things do not."
"Non living things can be described as objects that do not show any signs of being alive, they do not grow, move or reproduce. A living thing or life is something that does grow, reproduce, is active. "
"A living thing should be able to adapt in its own life time or through changes in generations, a non-living thing has no adaption or changes."
"Living things have cells?"
"Living things are described as something that is able to manipulate, and survive the environment, and is able to create a new generation. If not it is considered non-living."
"To be living it should be able to manipulate its environment, in order to grow and make a new generation. It should also be able to survive changes, and adapt. Non-living things can not do this."
"Something that is living has the ability to take action, or manipulate something on Earth. Non-living things are unable to manipulate."
(Only correct responses shown.)
Time after the formation of Earth for single-cell life to arise: a medium amount of time (about 1 billion years) [62%]
Time for the first types of simple single-cell life to evolve into fishlike creatures: the longest amount of time (about 3 billion years) [100%]
Time for fishlike creatures to evolve into more complex land-based animals today: the shortest amount of time (about 0.5 billion years) [62%]
How important is it to you to know whether or not there may be life elsewhere other than on Earth?
Unimportant. [0] Of little importance. * [1] Somewhat important. ****** [6] Important. ** [2] Very important. **** [4]
Briefly explain your answer regarding the importance of knowing whether there may be life elsewhere other than on Earth.
"We need to know, that way we can coexist peacefully."
"Cause if there is life else where, we can learn from them and become allies."
"It's an interesting and exciting idea, don't get me wrong. But until we find out that Tatooine exists, I'm just gonna try to focus on trying to understand the planet we already got, Earth. There's so much we still need to understand here, finding another planet full of life would make things more complicated. As it is projected in the movies, i feel like our governments would handle alien intelligence poorly and stupidly. Sorry guys, but let's get real here. I'm a 'down to Earth' guy anyways"
"To me it is somehwhat important just for my own curiosity. I think I want to know if there is life out there but also if I did not know I would be okay with that."
"As Carl Sagan said whether we're alone in the the universe or not both odds are terrifying but still the curiously of other life and how they act and operate is very intriguing."
"It would be important if that were true, though I don't feel like we will find out in my lifetime."
"I believe that finding out if other life exists elsewhere is important. I don't however believe that I will live to see us find that information out."
"It's creepy and also scary, but incredible fascinating. It's one of those things that you don't really have to know in order to live peacefully, but also something that makes you not want to die without knowing."
"Well, I won't die if I never get confirmation of extra-terrestrial life. But it would be neat."
"That means we're not alone."
Which type of star would be least likely to have a planet that could support life?
Massive. **** [4] Medium-mass. ** [2] Low-mass (red dwarf). *** [3] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) **** [4]
Briefly explain your answer to the previous question (type of star least likely to have a planet that could support life).
"Massive star won't live long."
"Low-mass, because it's too old, and it would be nearing the end of its main sequence."
"I'm debating between massive and low-mass stars. They're both really extreme in their own ways (massive too hot, low-mass too cold). I'm just making a rough guess; I'm sure this will be cleared up in class."
"I'm not quite sure which one would least likely to have a complex form of life and i would like to have this clarified."
"I have no idea."
"I was unsure of this question, need explanation."
Describe what the Drake equation is used for.
"Probability of finding other life in our galaxy."
"The Drake equation helps estimate the number of active, communicative alien civilizations in our Milky Way."
"Used to estimate the number of other possible advanced technologies out in the Milky way that we can actually communicate with or at least contact."
"Unsure."
Implausible. [0] Not very plausible. ******* [7] Somewhat plausible. ***** [5] Very plausible. [0] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) * [1]
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Do you think that Earth is the only planet with life?"
"Do you think the more advanced we get with technology, that eventually will figure out a way to find other life forms through our own tech, and if so how soon do you think that will be?"
"Do YOU legit think we're gonna find aliens out there someday? (Even if it's billions of years from now?)"
"Please talk about aliens."
No comments:
Post a Comment