Block 5 - and the subject and title is Energy.
Its all the stuff you might expect. What is energy, what is power, work. What units do they use, and how do you calculate it.
It covers most basic forms of energy such as the Sun, gravitational potential energy, and stuff like the latent heat of vaporisation.
There are quite a few equations in this book, but the good news is its only 67 pages long! I managed to do most of this book while lying in bed with a thick cold. I know a number of people found this book a little harder than the rest of the course so far. Its perhaps the maths and the scary looking equations, although really they are not that bad.
The course is often described as starting nice and easily, and then the content starts to ramp up, and this is perhaps the first indication things are getting quicker and deeper.
The associated TMA, TMA-4 is split between block 4 and this block. There are 3 questions on block 4.
A question about k and r species.
Another question about food webs, net productivity and so on where you have to calculate biomass increases.
Then a 250 word paragraph about species on the Galapagos islands.
Then a question on specific heat capacities with a few calculations.
Finally a question about kinetic and gravitational energy.
Monday, 18 December 2006
Saturday, 9 December 2006
S103: Block 4 - Unit within Diversity
Block 4 and its time to get into some biology.
Book 4 is called Unit within Diversity and covers a fair bit of biology in not much depth, but goes into a fair depth in the ecology and evolutionary aspects.
It starts out discussing what is life, and some of the historic moments in the science of biology. There is a brief chapter about cells and genetic material, then its into the main topic which is the diversity of life.
There is quite a lot of DVD work in this book, several hours in total, where you get to explore the Galapagos islands and make inferences about adaption and speciation. The dvd ahs a lot of question and answers coupled with film clips from various experts discussing the finch population and the marine iguanas. I can still here the learned doctor on the DVD saying "Correct" and "No" even after the course has finished, he has quite a distinctive style.
There is also a big section on ecology, building up food chains, and looking at the energy used in a food web, what depends on what etc. We get to find out how many oak trees are required to raise one bird of prey, through caterpillar and blue tit intermediaries.
There is no TMA specifically about this block, but the next block will be included. So its onwards and upwards.
Book 4 is called Unit within Diversity and covers a fair bit of biology in not much depth, but goes into a fair depth in the ecology and evolutionary aspects.
It starts out discussing what is life, and some of the historic moments in the science of biology. There is a brief chapter about cells and genetic material, then its into the main topic which is the diversity of life.
There is quite a lot of DVD work in this book, several hours in total, where you get to explore the Galapagos islands and make inferences about adaption and speciation. The dvd ahs a lot of question and answers coupled with film clips from various experts discussing the finch population and the marine iguanas. I can still here the learned doctor on the DVD saying "Correct" and "No" even after the course has finished, he has quite a distinctive style.
There is also a big section on ecology, building up food chains, and looking at the energy used in a food web, what depends on what etc. We get to find out how many oak trees are required to raise one bird of prey, through caterpillar and blue tit intermediaries.
There is no TMA specifically about this block, but the next block will be included. So its onwards and upwards.
Friday, 3 November 2006
S103: The second mailing arrives
The second mailing arrives - which is always an exciting time! A big cardboard box with a load more books, the experimental kit and some notes and stuff.
As mentioned in the previous article, I'd had to wait for this mailing before I could continue as the rock kit is required for one of the exercises in block 3.
One nice thing in this block is how thin some of the books are. Book 5 for instance is so thin it doesn't even have the title printed on the spine. There is a certain amount of relief with this discovery. However after experience with the blocks, you find that sometimes the shortest blocks have the longest experiments or DVD exercises.
This mailing takes us all the way up to block 8, and with it arrives the question for TMA-4, 5 and 6. Its best not to look at these to early as they often look impossible before you start the blocks.
Anyway, no excuse now, onwards
As mentioned in the previous article, I'd had to wait for this mailing before I could continue as the rock kit is required for one of the exercises in block 3.
One nice thing in this block is how thin some of the books are. Book 5 for instance is so thin it doesn't even have the title printed on the spine. There is a certain amount of relief with this discovery. However after experience with the blocks, you find that sometimes the shortest blocks have the longest experiments or DVD exercises.
This mailing takes us all the way up to block 8, and with it arrives the question for TMA-4, 5 and 6. Its best not to look at these to early as they often look impossible before you start the blocks.
Anyway, no excuse now, onwards
S103: Block 3 - The Earth and its place in the Universe, TMA-3
Block 3 is a bit of a strange block in this course. Its called "The Earth and its place in the Universe" The overall theme of the whole course is "Taking the world apart and then putting it back together". I'm not too sure how much the theme helps, and how much it constrains some of the topics.
Anyway, block 3 starts with some astronomy, and where we are in the universe. Then it moves onto newtons laws of motion, which are I suppose vaguely related. It then goes into volcanoes, plate tectonics and the rock cycle. You kind of get the feeling a number of bases had to be covered and two or three books have been condensed and glued together. The text is fine and very readable, and no jumps so its not a cut and paste job, but the swift change of subjects does feel a little odd for one book.
Book 3 also introduces the practical kit which arrives at about this time, although I had to wait a while as I was a couple of weeks ahead of schedule at this point. It has a collection of rock samples, a set of fossils and some other bits and pieces to be used in experiments later. One of the exercises is to identify the rocks with help of the notes. This is very similar to one of the lab sessions in SXR103.
The TMA for this one is not too bad.
The first question involves working out orbital periods, and involves drawing another graph. Its basically getting you derive Keplers laws. There were a few who stumbled on this one based on some of the forum comments. Its one thing to draw a graph, its another skill to use a graph to work out a value, or even to realise you can use a graph in this way.
The next question is about earthquakes, and you have to draw a cross section of the crust and fill in lots of details. Its not too bad but took be about 5 goes to get an appropriate scale to fill the page. I also resorted to colour to show the different structures.
Finally the 3rd question looks at magnetic survey data and gets you to work out the plate drift rate.
Anyway, block 3 starts with some astronomy, and where we are in the universe. Then it moves onto newtons laws of motion, which are I suppose vaguely related. It then goes into volcanoes, plate tectonics and the rock cycle. You kind of get the feeling a number of bases had to be covered and two or three books have been condensed and glued together. The text is fine and very readable, and no jumps so its not a cut and paste job, but the swift change of subjects does feel a little odd for one book.
Book 3 also introduces the practical kit which arrives at about this time, although I had to wait a while as I was a couple of weeks ahead of schedule at this point. It has a collection of rock samples, a set of fossils and some other bits and pieces to be used in experiments later. One of the exercises is to identify the rocks with help of the notes. This is very similar to one of the lab sessions in SXR103.
The TMA for this one is not too bad.
The first question involves working out orbital periods, and involves drawing another graph. Its basically getting you derive Keplers laws. There were a few who stumbled on this one based on some of the forum comments. Its one thing to draw a graph, its another skill to use a graph to work out a value, or even to realise you can use a graph in this way.
The next question is about earthquakes, and you have to draw a cross section of the crust and fill in lots of details. Its not too bad but took be about 5 goes to get an appropriate scale to fill the page. I also resorted to colour to show the different structures.
Finally the 3rd question looks at magnetic survey data and gets you to work out the plate drift rate.
Wednesday, 1 November 2006
S103: Block 2 - A termperate Earth?, TMA-2
Its on to block 2 - which is mostly about temperatures and climates and some of the science behind it. It looks a lot at global warming and the evidence, but doesn't go into too much detail - they are still breaking you in at this point, teaching you about notation, how to do powers of 10 and so on.
TMA-2 is all about temperatures. In question one you have to calculate some 7-year mean averages, add some extra points to a printed graph and do some explaining.
Question 2 requires plotting a histogram of some data given about temperatures. Then from this data you have to work out what sort of rainfall would be expected in a given month, and then convert the answer into SI units.
Question 3 and its a small essay on the effects of global warming on flooding in 300 words (max of 350) - it gives you quite a lot of help specifying what should and shouldn't be included, and a diagram is required. You have to draw such diagrams by hand, which I've argued with the powers that be at the university a couple of times. I don't like doing them - partly cos I'm a rubbish drawer, but mostly because it means my report is scattered around. Most of it is word processed, and then I have to leave a gap and fill it in later. I usually return to the TMA-s a few times before posting them, and tweak them or correct a spelling - which then means redrawing the diagram again. BAH! Well rules are rules...
Question 4 is about greenhouse gases, you have to explain why greenhouses gases work, and you have to draw a molecule.
Finally - you are asked to explain how you prepared the report and if you think your technique will work for bigger reports. I posted two versions of this - see if you can work out which is the real one!
Answer A
Answer B
TMA-2 is all about temperatures. In question one you have to calculate some 7-year mean averages, add some extra points to a printed graph and do some explaining.
Question 2 requires plotting a histogram of some data given about temperatures. Then from this data you have to work out what sort of rainfall would be expected in a given month, and then convert the answer into SI units.
Question 3 and its a small essay on the effects of global warming on flooding in 300 words (max of 350) - it gives you quite a lot of help specifying what should and shouldn't be included, and a diagram is required. You have to draw such diagrams by hand, which I've argued with the powers that be at the university a couple of times. I don't like doing them - partly cos I'm a rubbish drawer, but mostly because it means my report is scattered around. Most of it is word processed, and then I have to leave a gap and fill it in later. I usually return to the TMA-s a few times before posting them, and tweak them or correct a spelling - which then means redrawing the diagram again. BAH! Well rules are rules...
Question 4 is about greenhouse gases, you have to explain why greenhouses gases work, and you have to draw a molecule.
Finally - you are asked to explain how you prepared the report and if you think your technique will work for bigger reports. I posted two versions of this - see if you can work out which is the real one!
Answer A
I constructed the answer to question 3 by first writing down the information I remembered from the text in brief sentences. I then added the diagram, and went back to the text to fill out the explanation in more detail. After that I re-read the explanation and reformatted and changed some sentences around so the piece read more logically and in a better order.
I need to read the questions more carefully, but I think this approach works for me and will scale up to larger works.
Answer B
I wrote up a description of the water cycle and how it affects flooding together with some speculation about the effects, the likely impacts and the long-term outlook. I then re-edited it a bit with some additional text, and found I was up against the word limit.
I did some editing and collapsed a few sentences, got quite a succinct answer but there was a lot of detail to get in, and I was still quite close to the maximum 350 words (like within 5).
I then discovered, completely by accident that there was a part b) to this question, and that my answer to part a) had answered most of part b) too. This, by deduction helped me work out what should and shouldn't be in part a) a little more clearly. So I reread part a) more carefully, and then ended up deleting about 2/3 of the original answer as it was now no longer relevant.
I was now well under the word limit, so thought I ought to expand on the answer a bit, and filled it out a bit. It read much better now. Another re-read of the question and I found I'd missed out at least one of the asked for descriptions still, so I went and added that in at the relevant point.
The answer was now approaching the 350 words again by now, so I went back and trimmed the fat, collapsed a few sentences, deleted some bits that seemed extraneous. I went and re-read the question one more time, and this time I thought I'd got it all down pretty much. I was just over the 300 words but under the 350 max. I think I had all the bits that I wanted in, but I felt it was lacking a concluding sentence. So I added one of those in and then looked around to remove some text to make up for that. I decided one of my points could actually be part of the conclusion so moved that around and chopped it around.
Then I decided the first sentence was a bit pants, so rewrote that 3 or 4 times, and then decided it probably wasn't adding much to the whole thing, and deleted it, and squeeze a minor point it made in else where.
Another count and I was around the 310 level, surely there must be 10 words I could delete somewhere. I found a few spurious adjectives that could go, but then some of the sentences sounded a little bit funny, so I rewrote them slightly. I moved a couple of them around, and changed the punctuation a bit. I wasn't convinced it read that much better... but at least now I was at, lets see... 310 words! What the...? By now I'd spent well over an hour on a measly 300 words of description, and I wasn't even in the running for a booker prize!
Frustrated it had taken so long, I decided it was time for bed, and saved the document. Stumped off to the stairs, and then thought better and went back and saved the document to my pen drive, thinking I would be more than a little peeved if I lost the document at this stage.Later, I got my wife to read it, she made some good comments, and I changed a few of the sentences around, and ended up with almost exactly 300 words.
Friday, 20 October 2006
S103: First Tutorial
Its the first tutorial date, and I, after a little time with multimap, google maps, microsoft live, and an A-Z, am fairly sure I can find my way across the city to the secret location.
I've got a full tank of gas, a battered A-Z, its dark, but I'm not wearing sun glasses - hit it!
I roar off down the road, the radio is blasting out "Quote/Unquote" - anarchy has nothing on me, and the adventure has begun.
15 or 20 minutes later, and I've found the entrance to the school. Further more, I've found the car park, and wonder of wonder, a lit entrance with signs of life. Things are looking up!
I enter the building and approach the person on reception. I see a big sign saying something like DD123 tutorials in room 17. This looks encouraging. I say I'm here for the S103 tutorial.
"Oh yes" says the man, "That'll be room 101 - through the double doors and straight on".
"Thanks!"
Hmmm - room 101 has an ominous ring about it, positively Orwellian, not to say Merton-esque...
Through the double doors and past a lot of other doors - none of them with numbers on them. The lighting is not the best, and if this were a film, something bad would be about to happen, with the music rising to a creepy crescendo about now. I've come to the end of the passage, and it turns left - maybe I've missed a room or something...
WAIT - I'm sure someone following me! I consider my options, what would Jackie Chan do?
It turns out to be a fellow student and he's on the same search, so we pool our resources. The corridor makes another sharp turn, have we come too far? I see a number 47 finally - there is hope. We find a room 54, and a few others, but nothing approaching the 100s.
We are just wondering whether to make bivouac here for the night, when someone emerges from a nearby room, and lets us know that this is the S103 room - number 44. Ah, Ok.... Whatever...
I sit down and unpack a few notes and folders. There are 4 of us and the tutor, and we do a bit of idle chatter while waiting to see if anyone else finds us (unlikely I think!). Its at this point that the most useful bit of information of the entire tutorial is reveal. The purpose of that funny black plastic bit in the front of the study file.
You can insert the back cover of the current block book into it and it keeps everything together. I'm deeply impressed, and am still playing with it to this day. What WILL they think of next!
Our tutor decides to make a formal start, and introduces herself, and we begin the introductions. Then the door opens, and a security man shows in another 6 people, presumably lost souls who had been stalking the corridors like we had. We start again. What our background is, what we are looking forward to, and what we're not looking forward to.
In approximate order, the general trend for the not looking forward to subjects are Maths, Writing English, and Time management. No real surprises there.
One more person joins a few minutes later, having probably been directed to the basement somewhere.
Our tutor tells us a bit about herself, her role, what we can expect, some of the rules for TMA's and so on.
Some of us have had our materials for a while, others are still unwrapping theirs, and some are still awaiting arrival.
We have a brief break, but all refreshment machines have been switched off apparently, and on investigation the toilets are locked! A brave party decides to venture back to reception hoping to find an unlocked toilet, we never hear from them again... until the start of the next half.
The second half of the tutorial we do an exercise. We have a packet of liquorice allsorts, and we have to come up with a classification scheme.
After some discussion we decide to avoid the more obvious eaten and non-eaten category.
We categorise on shape, size and colour. Then we eat them.
A few more questions and answers and then its the end, we huddle together for support down the dark corridors but succeed in finding the exit without too much problem. I make my way home, picking the wrong road twice, but hey:
I survived tutorial 1 - Mission Acomplished!
I've got a full tank of gas, a battered A-Z, its dark, but I'm not wearing sun glasses - hit it!
I roar off down the road, the radio is blasting out "Quote/Unquote" - anarchy has nothing on me, and the adventure has begun.
15 or 20 minutes later, and I've found the entrance to the school. Further more, I've found the car park, and wonder of wonder, a lit entrance with signs of life. Things are looking up!
I enter the building and approach the person on reception. I see a big sign saying something like DD123 tutorials in room 17. This looks encouraging. I say I'm here for the S103 tutorial.
"Oh yes" says the man, "That'll be room 101 - through the double doors and straight on".
"Thanks!"
Hmmm - room 101 has an ominous ring about it, positively Orwellian, not to say Merton-esque...
Through the double doors and past a lot of other doors - none of them with numbers on them. The lighting is not the best, and if this were a film, something bad would be about to happen, with the music rising to a creepy crescendo about now. I've come to the end of the passage, and it turns left - maybe I've missed a room or something...
WAIT - I'm sure someone following me! I consider my options, what would Jackie Chan do?
It turns out to be a fellow student and he's on the same search, so we pool our resources. The corridor makes another sharp turn, have we come too far? I see a number 47 finally - there is hope. We find a room 54, and a few others, but nothing approaching the 100s.
We are just wondering whether to make bivouac here for the night, when someone emerges from a nearby room, and lets us know that this is the S103 room - number 44. Ah, Ok.... Whatever...
I sit down and unpack a few notes and folders. There are 4 of us and the tutor, and we do a bit of idle chatter while waiting to see if anyone else finds us (unlikely I think!). Its at this point that the most useful bit of information of the entire tutorial is reveal. The purpose of that funny black plastic bit in the front of the study file.
You can insert the back cover of the current block book into it and it keeps everything together. I'm deeply impressed, and am still playing with it to this day. What WILL they think of next!
Our tutor decides to make a formal start, and introduces herself, and we begin the introductions. Then the door opens, and a security man shows in another 6 people, presumably lost souls who had been stalking the corridors like we had. We start again. What our background is, what we are looking forward to, and what we're not looking forward to.
In approximate order, the general trend for the not looking forward to subjects are Maths, Writing English, and Time management. No real surprises there.
One more person joins a few minutes later, having probably been directed to the basement somewhere.
Our tutor tells us a bit about herself, her role, what we can expect, some of the rules for TMA's and so on.
Some of us have had our materials for a while, others are still unwrapping theirs, and some are still awaiting arrival.
We have a brief break, but all refreshment machines have been switched off apparently, and on investigation the toilets are locked! A brave party decides to venture back to reception hoping to find an unlocked toilet, we never hear from them again... until the start of the next half.
The second half of the tutorial we do an exercise. We have a packet of liquorice allsorts, and we have to come up with a classification scheme.
After some discussion we decide to avoid the more obvious eaten and non-eaten category.
We categorise on shape, size and colour. Then we eat them.
A few more questions and answers and then its the end, we huddle together for support down the dark corridors but succeed in finding the exit without too much problem. I make my way home, picking the wrong road twice, but hey:
I survived tutorial 1 - Mission Acomplished!
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