Your course grade will be determined by combining weighted scores from the following categories:

1. Lecture Exams (54%) - There will be two one-hour lecture exams (12% each)  given during regular class hours and one cumulative final exam (26%) during exam week. Tentative exam dates and topics (lectures and reading assignments) are:

EXAM I - Friday, Sept 29 --> Chapters 1-8 - Link to review sheet for Exam I

EXAM II - Friday, November 3--> Chapters 9-13 Link to review sheet for Exam II

Final EXAM  - Monday, December 11, 8-11 AM -->   the exam will be cumulative but will slightly emphasize the material covered after EXAM II

 

1. Laboratory exercises and exams (40%) - Weekly laboratory exercises must be completed and turned in by the end of each session. These exercises are designed to augment lecture topics and give students hands-on experience with geologic materials and tools, perform experiments, and work with scientific data. There will be two in-lab exams given during the semester.

As a whole, the laboratory portion of the course will account for 40% of your final grade. There are 12 individual laboratory exercises, one scheduled lab midterm, and one scheduled lab final. The 12 exercises will account for 30% of your final grade, and each lab exam is worth 5% of your final grade.

 

Field Trip/Web based exercise - On the weekend of October 13-15, Geology majors (unless officially excused) and optional for non-majors (but encouraged) will travel to SE Missouri. We will visit Illinois Caverns, and see a variety of igneous and sedimentary rocks in the Ozark dome. Attendance on the field trip and completion of a field notebook will satisfy this assignment. Those not going on the field trip will have a web-based virtual field trip exercise to complete. Either of these will count 4% toward your grade.

Homework assignments will be distributed during lectures and may involve some research in the geology library or on the World Wide Web. Additional assignments are included in your laboratory manual which require you to look at various display cases and maps in the NHB hallways or identify geologic materials used in campus buildings. The total from your homework assignments is worth 2% of your final grade (equal to one laboratory exercise).