SYLLABUS Spring 2006

(Ver 1.0, )

NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

ANT 390/ Ant390H Cultural Simulation: The Mars Mission (4)

Students collaborate in designing, building, populating and documenting an historically and scientifically plausible "working model" of the first permanent settlement on Mars. 3 hrs. lecture, 1 hrs. lab.

This course is offered in the broader context of the NAU Solar System Simulation, an on-line laboratory for undergraduate classes in the social and communications sciences. This will be the 11th iteration since Spring 1990.

Semester : Spring 2006
Section : ( 4165, 6573); 14:20-17:00 T/Th;
  Room: Emerald 1 - A105
lab is concurrent with class
Professor : Reed D. Riner
E-mail : Class listserv: Ant390-l@lists.nau.edu (restricted)
Instructor:       Reed.Riner@NAU.edu
Phones : 928.523.6583;
928.779.0654
Office: ANT 109 F in the Emerald City
Office hours : to be announced;
10:30-14:00 T/Th;
MWF by appointment

Required:

Readings:

Recommended:

Castro, Elizabeth 1998 HTML for the World Wide Web - Visual Quickstart Guide, Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.

You'll find excellent help with HTML and authoring web pages at the ITS Web Site Creation FAQ and Web Developer's References and Resources pages.

Objectives

This course involves students in an elaborate and challenging sociocultural simulation in which you will build a scientifically and historically plausible, ethically and aesthetically desirable, and ecologically sustainable 'working model' of the first permanent settlement on Mars - in the classroom and in the Internet. You will interact through a text-based virtual reality program, e-mail and the Web with members of your own team and teams on other campuses simulating other sites in the future Solar System, and with volunteer professional consultants. As a final evaluation you will compile an illustrated writing portfolio documenting and analyzing your experiences in the community.

Course Prerequisites: none
Disribution Block: Social and Political Worlds
Thematic Focus: Technology
Environmental Consciousness
Essential Skills: Scientific Inquiry
Critical Thinking

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COURSE DESCRIPTION:
ANT 390 CULTURAL SIMULATION: THE MARS MISSION

In July 1989 Presidential policy established the Mars Mission and Settlement as the primary objective for the United States' space effort into the 21st Century. Possibly this mission will be multinational, jointly with Russians, or others.

At this point in our history fantastic images of the Mars mission and settlement, images which are much more fiction than science outnumber the more scientifically thoughtful images. There is serious need for scientifically, socially and politically credible images of a Mars mission and settlement.

Alternative images of the Mars Mission and the Mars Settlement need to be developed in popular and political thinking about space development, as we move into the 21st Century. How permanent settlement on the planet Mars might actually be achieved merits serious and systematic investigation.

The investigation must be comprehensive, therefore interdisciplinary, including all of the natural and social sciences, the humanities, philosophy and religion. It is pertinent to note that NASA is placing increasing emphasis on the role of human social and cultural factors in the development of each space project.

The students ANT 390 will undertake such an investigation.

The interdisciplinary research, design and visualization activity will be organized as a computer-supported role-playing simulation. The students will research and "build" a scientifically informed working model of a Mars Settlement. The Proceedings from the Case for Mars Conferences will be included among the primary references, as they present the most recent professional thinking about the Mars mission in science fact and fiction.

We anticipate that several other communities will be evolving in this same Solar System, and that Mars will be connected by the INTERNET electronic network from the beginning of class. Over Spring Break some students will participate, via computer connection, in the annual CONTACT conference.


Procedures

University classes are seldom organized as cooperative problem solving exercises; this course is an exception. Your learning experience in this course will not be privatized, competitive and convergent toward a common, uniform, standardized body of knowledge and a standardized final examination. Rather your experience will be collaborative and divergent. You will develop your role as your team's "expert" in one or more subject areas, and you will be evaluated, in part on your contributions in these fields, and in part on the improvements in your abilities to communicate and work collaboratively with your peers in that role. Additionally, you will be graded by your peers on your professionalism.

You and your colleagues will work together to discover all the pertinent questions and problems that effect the Mars Mission, then devise procedures to solve those problems. At the same time you will be in the process of solving those problems, you will actually simulate, that is act out, what you're studying - the Mars Expedition and Settlement. You will learn about the behavior of a high-tech socio-cultural system by building an elaborate working model of one.

Based on twenty years experience with CONTACT Bateson Project simulations, the first two rules for this simulation are:

  1. Work within the parameters of scientific and historic plausibility, ethical and aesthetic desirability, and ecological sustainability : you will be expected to incorporate findings of independent, and thorough, library -and other- research into your work; and
  2. Exhibit COLLEGIAL BEHAVIOR at all times: you are expected to conduct yourself as a professional in every respect, i.e. good communications manners, quality of contributions and participation in team projects, meeting deadlines, etc.
The course will be organized in 4-week quarters: Writing Portfolio:

          The four papers, four accompanying illustrations, an edited log of a tour through the parts of the on-line simulation that the student has built, and any other writing and/or illustrations done in connection with the course will constitute the student's writing portfolio and the basis for half the over-all grade in the course

          For successful participation and completion of this course you are expected to have regular and reliable access to a personal computer (PC or MAC) for preparation of ALL of your written assignments and access to your Internet account. One of our long-range objectives is for you to develop habits that will lead you to a "paper-free desk". This course may provide the "excuse" that you have been looking for to get a personal computer and modem; we will be happy to counsel you on this tax-deductible investment - one which you can expect to raise your GPA by one full letter grade.

          The University expects you to spend 2-3 hours studying out of class for hour spent in class. For this course, some of that out-of-class time will be conventional reading, researching and writing, but a considerable portion will be spent in small-group, problem-solving sessions which you are responsible to schedule among yourselves, meeting either face-to-face or on-line in virtual reality.

          Warning: this is a high (personal) risk course. You will be role-playing and identifying with that other person in a high-stress situation; and you will be expected to actively cooperate with your peers in this activity. The instructor reserves the right to counsel a student out of the course by drop-date (Fri 7 MAR) if these active learning expectations are too demanding or stressful for the student.

          Otherwise all usual standards and expectations of the University (see Student Handbook) will be in effect, and the instructor reserves the right to make announced changes to accommodate unforseen contingencies of the semester.

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Some of the specific objectives of this course include the development of:

The absence of pre-requisites points to a particular aim of the class: to take intelligent lay people (from the standpoint of science and technology) and involve them in personal self-education, letting them start from wherever they are at the beginning of the class and having them go as far as they can. All students will come away with a better understanding, both of the particulars of space exploration and of the generalities of working with science and technology. They will in particular be better able to evaluate statements they hear in the news or read in the press about matters technological.

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COURSE DESCRIPTION:
ANT 390L CULTURAL SIMULATION: THE MARS MISSION Lab (1)

The laboratory will cultivate in students in a variety of information management and critical thinking skills, including: computer-based information retrieval, computer-mediated communication and social skills, situation analysis skills, logical thinking, problem solving skills, etc., which are expected to include specifically: Laboratory grade, computed independently of the 'lecture' grade, will be determined on the basis of attendance and active participation, and by the combination of:

You are expected to provide your own documentation of the foregoing, including, especially, a logged and edited printout of a personally guided tour of what you have built in the simulation. Appropriately edited and annotated transcripts of important on-line meetings or other events will also be welcomed. These documents are to be included in your Writing Portfolio.

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da capo

ANT 390
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last updated on 05.12.31

This page is maintained by:
Reed D. Riner, Professor,
Department of Anthropology
email: Reed.Riner@NAU.edu