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.
Describe something you found interesting from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
"I was absolutely mind blown with the timeline presentation of our universe and its different time periods. My life feels like a blip in the long scheme of things."
"The 'Here is Today' timeline was cool, but it made me feel small."
"The Miller-Urey experiment--how two people can just come up with these experiments and actually get valuable results that teach them about life on Earth."
"Evolution of life."
"The Drake equation was really interesting because finding life in another place in our galaxy would be the biggest discovery of our lifetime (and probably ever)."
"The methods and messages that scientists have been devising and sending out into space!"
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"I just think the idea of things evolving and changing is a really complex topic and it's a lot of information to take in."
"How one-celled organisms formed into 6.6 billion people."
"I just found it hard to fathom that much time and how short our lifespan really is in comparison to the earths or even our universe's life."
"The Drake equation confusing--how can it have any real meaning when you don't even really know that many values in order to actually use and prove it?"
"Although the Drake equation is very interesting, it is also very confusing, because math."
"I think the whole Drake equation is a little confusing just because all the factors and then it talks about guesses."
Briefly describe a difference between life and non-living things.
"A living thing manipulates its environment in order to grow and make a new generation of things that can manipulate its environment. A living thing is able to adapt, either in its own lifetime, or through changes in successive generations. These functions are encoded in long, complex sequences of carbon molecules. Non-living things do none of these."
"Living things are capable of manipulating their environment and reproducing. Non-living things aren't usually capable of much at all."
"Living things can manipulate its environment and create another generation that can manipulate their environment."
"This is a hard question to answer. I was going to say anything with a heartbeat is alive but I believe that plants are alive but they don't have a heartbeat. I guess if something is alive it can feel something whether it's physical or emotional, but something that is dead feels nothing."
"Something alive has to be able to manipulate its environment and also be able to adapt to changes."
"Non-living things aren't alive."
"Not sure."
(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) [22%]
Time for the first types of simple single-cell life to evolve into fishlike creatures: the longest amount of time (about 3 billion years) [70%]
Time for fishlike creatures to evolve into more complex land-based animals today: the shortest amount of time (about 0.5 billion years) [39%]
How important is it to you to know whether or not there may be life elsewhere other than on Earth?
Unimportant. * [1] Of little importance. * [1] Somewhat important. **** [4] Important. ********** [10] Very important. ******* [7]
Briefly explain your answer regarding the importance of knowing whether there may be life elsewhere other than on Earth.
"I think that there are many reasons life on other planets could be useful but at this time in history we don't really have the tech to do anything with the knowledge. We haven't really figured out space travel outside of our own solar system yet; let alone other galaxies."
"It would be cool, but seems impossible as of right now to interact with them."
"Even if there was life elsewhere, it probably wouldn't affect us because we would lack communication to them and would have no way to get there or them to us. It would take a lot of time for that to happen so that's why its somewhat important because it would be cool to know but would not experience it myself probably."
"For me knowing whether or not there is life elsewhere in the universe isnt just about science, its more about religious concepts."
"I think that knowing whether or not there is life outside of Earth is key to understanding and interpreting the human condition, and will help to better understand our uniqueness in the universe."
"It is so fascinating and I am sure if there was life on other planets and we could communicate we could both learn from each other."
"If I were to know one thing before dying I would want to know if there is other life."
"I'm fine here, I don't really care what goes on anywhere else."
"It would be great to know and impossible to afford to get there. We are ruining this planet so it might be comforting to know that life can survive elsewhere."
"It will answer so many questions about our existence and per-existing beliefs about how/why we got here."
"Even if there was life elsewhere, it probably wouldn't affect us because we would lack communication to them and would have no way to get there or them to us. It would take a lot of time for that to happen so that's why its somewhat important because it would be cool to know but would not experience it myself probably."
Which type of star would be least likely to have a planet that could support life?
Massive. ************ [12] Medium-mass. * [1] Low-mass (red dwarf). ******[6] (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).
"It took about a billion years for life to form on Earth and massive stars don't really live past that time frame."
"A massive star has a short lifespan, and therefore would die before any orbiting planets had a chance to evolve intelligent life."
"A low-mass star would have a lower luminostity which means it would have a smaller habitable zone."
"The red dwarf probably wouldn't have enough energy to warm nearby planets, or enough gravity to pull planets into orbit?"
"No idea."
Describe what the Drake equation is used for.
"It is used to estimate the total number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy."
"The Drake formula is used to calculate how many advanced civilizations there are in the milky way by calculating all the necessary things needed to happen before intelligent life emerges."
"The probable number of active extraterrestrial life that have the ability to communicate with us."
Implausible. ** [2] Not very plausible. ********** [10] Somewhat plausible. ******* [7] Very plausible. *** [3] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) * [1]
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Final reading assignment! Hooray!"
"How do we know when the beginning of life started?" (Yes. Less certain: how it started.)
"Do you ever answer these questions?" (Yes.)
"I'm going to miss this class.
"Can we go over the final in detail? How accurate is the study guide for the final?" (We won't have time to review material for the final exam, but it is mainly comprehensive and the study guide and sample exam questions should be sufficient for you to prepare for the final exam. That is, if you need/want to take it to raise your grade.)
No comments:
Post a Comment