Date	Topic	Reading	Lab
1/25	Unity of Science (Curtis Smith) Astronomy: (Tom Dennis) Spectra of the stars	Handout: Snippets about Stars (Selections from Seven Universes) by Tom Dennis	No Lab
2/1	Hubble law; Microwave background radiation; Planck’s law; Origin of the elements; Life cycle of stars	Handout: Snippets about the Universe (Selections from Seven Universes) by Tom Dennis Lecture illustrations The Big Bang was not a Fireworks Display: Washington Post article summarizing basic ideas, including general & special relativity Cosmology and the Big Bang: Evidence for the big bang; description of the microwave background radiation The day time began: The philosophical implications of the origin of time, from New Scientist.	Colors of heavenly bodies: Observe planets at the observatory 7-10 on a clear night View the solar spectrum, time and location to be announced In-lab exercise on star and planet colors. earthrise from moon Moon Venus The other planets Orion Betelgeuse & Rigel Betelgeuse from Hubble Space Telescope
2/8	Discussion: Astronomy History of Earth (Curtis Smith)	See some really fabulous images of the gaseous nurseries for stars: The birth and death of stars Origin of the Solar System: A publication of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space at the University of Arizona Let there be Life: New Scientist article on the origin of life.	DNA in Forensics and Paternity Identification Molecular Biology Glossary Basics of DNA Fingerprinting DNA as a forensic instrument
2/15	Basic molecular biology (Kate Dorfman)	A Gene for Nothing: Discover article written shortly after the first mammalian cloning success (If you can't get it, go to the Discover Archive and type the title in the appropriate box, or get the table of contents for Oct 97) Check out this website for coverage of molecular biology The MIT biology hypertextbook, especially Central Dogma and Prokaryotic gene expression	Green Fluorescent Protein GFP in the News
2/22	Embryology (Rachel Fink) fertilization cleavage	SE 174-179 A Fantastical Experiment (This article from Science News summarizes the science leading up to creating Dolly, the first mammalian clone.) Sea Urchins (This web site has some great photographs, and some information about the natural history of echinoderms.)	Fertilization in sea urchins Animations of fertilization & development (Almost all our lab procedures are illustrated here; so are the biological processes of fertilization and early development in urchins.)
3/1	How do we find out how development works: twinning and what it tells us (KAD) Basic principles of Evolution (SM)	How does a cell become a whole body? (from Discover) (If you can't get it, go to the Discover Archive and type the title in the appropriate box, or get the table of contents for Nov 92) Garden of Mutants (Discover Aug 95) Homeobox genes are discovered in plants From fin to hand (Discover Jan 96: evolution and the homeobox) Where do toes come from? (TIME Magazine July 31, 1995: evolution and the homeobox. Read this if the Discover server is down) 5 misconceptions about evolution	Synchronicity in sea urchin cleavage
3/8	Evolution and creationism, continued (SM)	What have other students done in prior years? Independent Projects Spring 1998	Brainstorming projects: introduction to the science library facilities