This course will fulfill the core curriculum requirement in
science. It is designed to be taught by faculty from a variety of
different science disciplines.
This course introduces students to the fundamental processes of
science through the exploration of specific topics in modern
science. Offerings will include a number of different
investigations such as astronomy, atomic theory, energy,
biodiversity and global change, evolution, genetics, infectious
disease, plate tectonics and geochronology, and quantum
mechanics.
The principles of active learning infuse the pedagogical
strategies of the course. The overall goal of thinking critically
about science (and by extension other fields as well) is a
multi-stage, multi-faceted process. It requires recognizing the
nature of a problem, questioning its elements, actively
investigating those elements, reasoning through the results of that
inquiry to possible answers, accepting and refining the results of
that reasoning, and finally, acting on that acceptance.