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Extra Credit

Honors Essays

 

 

 

ESSAYS:

 

Students in the Honors Section of Physical Science II (PHYS 108) will be expected to complete three 
          short essays during the course of the semester.  Each of the three essays will count 33% of a total 
          essay grade.  The total essay grade will be worth as much as the final exam, i.e. 20% of your total 
          PHYS 108 grade.  Essays will be graded on quality of writing as well as content.

ESSAY 1: Due 02/14/19, 3:00 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science Reporting in the Media

*     Topic: Science related issues are becoming an increasingly large part of the news these days. A particularly challenging aspect of reporting on science is avoiding too much technical information that is not understandable to the average person, while still adequately conveying the essential points of the story. As with all news reporting, it can be challenging for the consumer to filter through the (sometimes substantial) bias that can be associated with a specific news source. There are always many choices available to people from which they can get their news. There are many examples of several types of news media: newspapers (e.g. NY Times, Wall Strret Journal), news magazines (e.g. Time, The Economist), television (e.g. ABC, CNN, FOX), radio (e.g. NPR, BBC). The consensus is that most, if not all, of those sources have at least some editorial bias to their reporting. Your task is to choose some recent news story that deals with some area of physics, and then compare and contrast the reporting of that story from different news sources. You must analyze the reporting by one source from at least three different types of news sources (e.g. newspaper, news magazine, television), and at least two sources from the same type of source (e.g. (MS)NBC and FOX), for a total of at least four different sources. Please restrict your source types to the four listed above (i.e. no online only or news aggregate sites like Salon, Huffington Post, Drudge Report). Also, please note that almost all news sources have web sites where you can read the published stories or broadcast transcripts. Examples of sources that are not appropriate include ones like "Bob's Website of Stuff I Think is Cool Today" or People magazine. One type of source that may seem like a real news site, but really isn't a general news outlet includes websites/magazines like "Science News", "ScienceDaily", physorg.com or physicsworld.com. Sources like these are really more like public relations organs for the scientific field that exist largely to feed stories to more standard news media. These sources may be good places to get topic ideas, but your articles for comparison must come from a standard news broadcast/newspaper/magazine source like those listed above.

*     References: Your references will be the published or broadcast stories themselves. The postings of those stories on the websites may serve as your references.

*     Content: Give an introductory description of the news story, but spend most of the essay detailing the similarities and differences you find among your chosen sources. How well do they convey the story to a general audience, accurately explain the (technical) details of the topic? Does the lack of or presence of technical detail hurt or help the story? Is the writer presenting an objective, unbiased report or is the piece slanted explicitly or subtly to forward an opinion or agenda? Do the specific formats of the different media types impact these issues? These are some questions you should address, but there may be others. Make some conclusions about what you think is important when choosing from where you will receive your news.

*     Length and Presentation: Write an essay of 1200-1500 words. Make sure you include a title, your name, and a list of references used, including full URL's and titles of articles, etc.

*     Submission: Essays should be submitted as email file attachments in either Microsoft Word or PDF format.

*     Deadline: 3:00 PM, February 14.

 

*     Topics already seclected:

      • Lunar eclipse
      • New CERN collider
      • Blue NYC skyline
      • Earth's magnetic field shifting
      • Most massive black hole observation

ESSAY 2: Due 03/21/19, 3:00 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Physics From Art

*     Topic: Science and art are very complementary disciplines. Art helps us discover, understand, and describe what is possible in human experience (emotions, relationships, etc.) even if we have not personally experienced those things. Science helps us to discover, understand, and descibe what is possible in the natural world even if those possibilities have not occurred yet. Often the two disciplines overlap to describe the same phenomenon. Your task is to find such a case in poetry. Find a published poem by a professional poet that deals with some physics topic. The poem must in some way deal with the physics phenomenon itself. A simple reference such as "On a sunny day..." does not count as a poem dealing with the visible light spectrum from the sun. In your essay, discuss the ideas presented about that physics topic. Each student must choose a different poem, so please email me with your choice for approval before writing your paper.

*     References: Please give the reference for the book in which the poem was published. You should have some other scientific reference(s) as well.

*     Content: Talk about the ideas the poem contains concerning the physics topic. What discoveries, understandings, or descriptions of the phenomenon are communicated? How do those ideas relate to the scientific facts known about that natural phenomenon? How does the structure and language of the poem relate to the physical processes described? Did you come to any further understanding of the physics or of your relationship to the natural world after reading the poem?

*     Length and Presentation: Write an essay of 1000-1200 words. Make sure you include a title, your name, and a list of references used .

*     Submission: Essays should be submitted as email file attachments in either Microsoft Word or PDF format.

*     Deadline: 3:00 PM , March 21.

*     Poems Chosen:

      • "A Never Naught Song," Frost
      • "Aurora Borealis," Melville
      • "Mirror," Mesic
      • "Choose Something Like A Star," Frost
      • "I'll Tell You How The Sun Rose," Dickinson

ESSAY 3: Due 4/11/19, 3:00 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Nobel Prize in Physics and You

*     Topic: We hear a lot about the Nobel Prizes, which are awarded in the fields of Literature, Peace, Economics, Medicine, Chemistry, and Physics. But as respected as the Nobel Prizes are, do we really pay attention to who they are awarded to or what for? The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded 112 times beginning in 1901. It has been bestowed upon 209 individuals for theoretical, experimental, and technological achievements. Some of these achievements have become well-known foundations of the society in which we live, others represent obscure phenomena whose implications are appreciated only by those working in specialized sub-fields of research. All have had a profound impact on physics and often on the world around us. In your essay, you will write about two Nobel Prize winning discoveries in the last century (after 1919). For the first, you will write about one that has had a major impact on your life and why. Each student must write about a different Nobel Prize, so once you have made a selection, please email me with your choice. If it has already been chosen by another student, you will need to select another Nobel Prize in Physics. For the second, you will be assigned a Nobel Prize and write about what impact that discovery has had on physics.

*     References:You will need at least four references, two for each Nobel Prize. Wikipedia may not be counted as one of your references (although it may be a good starting point for you).

*     Content: Your paper must introduce the chosen Nobel Prize winner and the physics for which they were recognized. You need to explain in layman's terms the physics principles of the discovery and why it was deemed important enough to merit a Nobel Prize. For the first one, you need to describe how this discovery has affected you. What impacts has it had on an academic, societal, commercial, personal level that matter in your life? Back up your opinion with concrete examples, facts, statistics, etc. that testify to the discovery's influence on you or your circumstances. For the second one, you need to describe why this discovery was so important to the field of physics. For example, how did it change the way we think about the world, what new fields of study did it make possible?

*     Length and Presentation: Write an essay of 1300-1600 words. Make sure you include a title, your name, and a list of references used, including full URL's and titles of articles, books, etc.

*     Submission: Essays should be submitted as email file attachments in either Microsoft Word or PDF format.

*     Deadline: 3:00 PM , April 11.

 

*      Prizes assigned for physics impact that are unavaialble to selected for personal impact:

      • Jones - 2006
      • Klinke - 1932
      • Simon - 1979
      • Spiers - 2013
      • Taplin - 1980

       

*      Prizes already selected for personal impact:

      • Jones - 2009
      • Klinke -
      • Simon -
      • Spiers -
      • Taplin - 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This page was last modified on April 2, 2019