Fantasy Worlds – How to Build Your Own Planet (180-0-01)
Instructors
Elvira Mulyukova
Meeting Info
Technological Institute F285: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Understanding the formation and evolution of rocky planets, from their inception in the stellar nebula to becoming geologically active space objects that can sometimes support life, is an exceptionally creative scientific quest. It requires application of fundamental physical concepts, such as gravity, heat transport, phase transitions, magnetism, and many others, to natural phenomena that are as common in the lives of planets as they are in our everyday lives. This course will introduce different stages of planetary evolution and the physics behind them. New concepts learned each week will be immediately applied to the planet that each student will be growing (theoretically) throughout the course. Each student will end up with a unique planet, depending on choices that they make at each fork in the road of planetary evolution. The fate of each planet will also be affected by the surprise events, such as asteroid impacts and solar storms, induced by the instructor, which will keep the students on their toes and introduce them to the complexity and unpredictability of natural phenomena. The closely intertwined learning-application structure of the course will facilitate a deeper understanding of general physics, enabling the students to apply them beyond planetary sciences. The unique use of hypothetical (i.e., fantastical) worlds will provide a learning framework where (1) the known attraction of exact sciences is retained (such as the satisfaction of the ‘right' answer), but (2) the potentially intimidating aspect of misunderstanding a well-established fact is avoided. Fantasy worlds, as the word suggests, are worlds that do not actually exist anywhere in the universe (at least as far as we know), they are only as real as the scientific justification made for them by their creators - the students.
Learning Objectives
After completing this course, students will be able to:
• Identify and describe fundamental physical processes involved in formation and evolution of planets
• Form connections between fundamental sciences and their role in people's everyday lives
• Identify the gaps in knowledge in a scientific field
• Build a strategy for tackling the unknown (elements of the scientific method)
• Formulate a testable hypothesis and argue how addressing this hypothesis would advance knowledge (intellectual merit) and benefit society (broader impacts)
• Communicate in written and visual formats
Teaching Method
Lectures, interactive class activities (games, quizzes, student-led discussion), plus excursions:
On Campus - Class tour to Dearborn Observatory (optional).
Off Campus - Class trip to the Adler Planetarium, which may be via public transit or may require a bus. Students who are unable to attend, will complete an alternative exercise, such as lunar observations or mapping of mars surface topography (required).
Evaluation Method
The students will be assessed based on their class participations, weekly homework assignments (stages of evolution of their individual planets, as part of the scaffolding towards their final product), and presentation of the planet that they finally develop by the end of the course, including the description of the physical processes involved in each stage of the planet's evolution.
Class Materials (Required)
Book Title: How to Build a Habitable Planet: The Story of Earth from the Big Bang to Humankind
About the book: https://www.habitableplanet.org/
Authors: Charles H. Langmuir, Wally Broecker
Edition: Illustrated, revised
Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2012
ISBN: 0691140065, 9780691140063
Length: 718 pages
Price: New ~ $50
Class Attributes
Natural Sciences Foundational Discipline
Natural Sciences Distro Area