Policies

Printable syllabus

Assignment policy

Reading Assignments

I expect you to complete the assigned reading before class on the day for which it is assigned.

General instructions for reading assignments

• Do the assigned reading before you come to class on the date for which it is assigned. If you have questions or find the ideas presented in the readings confusing, I encourage you to ask questions in class.

• Questions in the “Reading Notes” sections of the assignments are for you to think about to make sure you understand the material, but you do not have to write up your answers or turn them in.

  You are responsible for all the assigned readings, but topics I have highlighted in the reading notes are particularly important.

• In addition to the questions I ask in the reading notes, when you are reading material from Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast look over the “Take-Home Points” and “Study Questions” at the end of each chapter to check whether you understand the key facts and concepts from the chapter.

Laboratory

Preparation

Except for the first week of the semester, You should the read lab description and do any preparatory activities before coming to lab (If you are doing the lab asynchronously, read the materials and do the preparations before starting work on the lab).

Reports

For lab reports, you must write RMarkdown code that successfully compiles to a Word document or PDF file. To turn in your report, you must:

• Accept the assignment in GitHub classroom
• Use RStudio to create a new Project from Version Control and give it the URL for your GitHub respository for the lab assignment.
• Use the RMarkdown lab report template in the assignment to complete the exercises
• Successfully knit the RMarkdown into a Word or PDF document
• Use git to commit your work (including the RMarkdown and the Word or PDF output)
• Push your committed work to GitHub before the deadline.

General instructions for lab reports

For labs, you may work with a partner. In your report it is fine for the two of you to share computer code, calculations, and output from climate models, but each of you should write up the material in your own words.

You are welcome to discuss the lab with each other and to work together outside of the laboratory session and read each other’s reports as you work on them, but you should not just copy text from your partner’s report (or anyone else’s). Use your own words to describe what you did, to interpret your results, and to answer the questions posed in the lab assignment.

Honor Code:

This course, like all courses at Vanderbilt, is conducted under the Honor Code.

Studying:

As you study for this class, I encourage you to to seek help from me or from other classmates or friends.

Homework Assignments:

I encourage working together on homework assignments: you may talk with your friends and classmates about homework assignments, compare notes on how you are working a problem, and you may look at your classmates’ work on homework assignments. But you must work through the problems yourself in the work you turn in: Even if you have discussed the solution with others you must work through the steps yourself and express the answers in your own words. You may not simply copy someone else’s answer.

Team Assignment:

On some assignments, in which I explicitly direct you to work with others. These team assignments will contain instructions how the honor code applies.

Research Project:

The research project assignment will contain details about how the honor code applies to the research project.

If you ever have questions about how the Honor Code applies to your work in this course, please ask me. Uncertainty about the Honor Code does not excuse a violation.

Final Note:

I have made every effort to plan a busy, exciting, and instructive semester. I may find during the term that I need to revise the syllabus to give more time to some subjects or to pass more quickly over others rather than covering them in depth. Thus, while I will attempt to follow this syllabus as closely as I can, you should realize that it is subject to change during the semester.