Physical Science/Astronomy 100 - Survey of Astronomy
Four Quarter Hours

I. PREREQUISITES
This course has no prerequisite requirements. Physical Science 100 may be used toward fulfillment of the university’s general education requirements. This course may be taken as either Physical Science (PSC) 100 or Astronomy (ASTR) 100 (you cannot receive credit for both PSC 100 and ASTR 100).

II. COURSE DESCRIPTION
Survey of Astronomy is a nontechnical course requiring no physics and very little mathematics background. Topics include:

• the history of astronomy
• the motions of the sun, moon, and stars; constellations
• the nature of light and telescopes
• physical properties of the planets, and moons
• comets, meteors, and meteorites
• the physical properties of the Sun and other stars
• the origin and evolution of stars
• the structure of the Milky Way and other galaxies
• pulsars, quasars, and black holes; and
• theories of cosmology and the expanding universe.

III. TEXTBOOK
ISBN-13 9780495119630 Seeds, Michael A., Horizons: Exploring the Universe, 10th ed. (non-media), Brooks/Cole, 2008

...available from EdMap's distance-learning online bookstore.

IV. NATURE OF THE EXAMINATION
The examination consists of 100 multiple-choice questions. You will be given three hours to complete the examination. You will be provided with all of the materials necessary to complete the examination; no texts, notes, calculator, or supplementary aids are permitted.

V. METHODS OF STUDY
This course covers all of the Seeds, 10th edition, textbook. At the end of each chapter you will find the following study aids: “Summary,” “New Terms,” “Review Questions,” “Discussion Questions,” “Problems,” “Critical Inquiries for the Web,” and “Exploring the Sky.” All of these can be useful in your study of astronomy.

I would suggest that you read the “Summary” section first before you read the main sections of the chapter. After you have completed your reading of each chapter, reread the “Summary” to see if it all fits into place and then make sure that you understand and can define all of the “New Terms.” Then look over the “Review Questions” and “Discussion Questions” to see if you have grasped the material in the chapter. Remember that all of the questions on the examination will be in the multiple-choice format, so you will not have to write out explanations or definitions but will have to choose the best answer from a list of four or five choices. Then go over the outline “transparency copies” if you decide to use them, and finally reread any sections of the chapter that you still do not understand. Remember that a course like this has about 40 hours of in-class lecture and most students put in about 3 hours of outside study for each hour of lecture. This indicates that around 150 hours of work will be required by the average student to learn this material, so please do not expect to read the textbook once and feel that you are well-prepared for the exam. It will take most of you more preparation than that.

The “Problems,” “Critical Inquiries for the Web,” and “Exploring the Sky” sections will also be helpful as a review but you will NOT be asked to do much math or critical analysis on the exam so treat these as a general review of the material and not as examples of the types of questions that will be on the exam itself.

If you have access to the Internet, there is a set containing most of the color transparency copies available on the Ohio University Physics Department Web site. These are NOT required to complete this course, but they are a good reference source that summarizes the material that I would present in class if you were to study this material as a lecture course on the OU campus. Use them if you like as a study supplement. There are also other links on this site that you may find interesting as well. Use them as you like. Simply ignore any information on class schedules and grading presented on this site. The material given in the student guide for this correspondence course takes precedence over this kind of information found on the OU Web site. Go to the following Web site if you want to find these transparency copies.

http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/coursesresources/online/psc100.html

You will also find sample multiple-choice questions for each section of the text at the end of this Information Sheet. You should take these sample quizzes to test your readiness for the CCE exam. You can then restudy any material relating to those questions that you miss. There are more questions in Part 2 than in the other parts because it covers more chapters and also because the material on the solar system is covered in another course taught at Ohio University (Physical Science 100D). The material in chapters 16-20 is not covered in quite as much detail as that covered in the first 15 chapters of the textbook. The questions are self-check; answers are provided in a key at the end of the Information Sheet. DO NOT send them in or bring them to the exam. They are simply for you to self-test your knowledge of the material and prepare yourself for the exam itself.

There is a lot of interesting material covered in this course. I hope that you enjoy your study of astronomy and that it helps you to understand and appreciate the world around you a little better.

Sample Questions

VI. GRADING CRITERIA
All examination questions are worth one point. There is no penalty for wrong answers. The final grade will be assigned on the basis of total points according to the following scale: