Grade Breakdown & Honor
Code
Grade
Breakdown:
Labs (8 @ 4% each) 32%
Group projects 12%
Lab Citizenship & Class Participation 6%
Take Home Quizzes (6 @ 5% each) 30%
ACS (5%) & Cumulative (15%) Final 20%
Labs: These may be discussed on with other people (we encourage you to do so), but each must turn in their own results and reports in the form of a fully documented lab notebook collected at the end of each week. Report forms are provided for some labs as a summary only. These should be stapled into your lab notebook with the appropriate lab’s conclusions.
Homework: Homework will not be collected, though you may be called on during class to present something from it. The quizzes and the cumulative final will be drawn from similar problems, so it is to your great benefit to try to keep up on these, and to review them again during the last portion of the course.
Take-home Quizzes: These exams will consist of problems from the material covered during the 2-day modules, and they may include a few page paper from the current literature that is related to the material and for which you may also have to answer some questions. Maximum time limit will be set at 2-3 hours.
Final Project: We will offer a list of projects in some areas such as toxicology, forensic analysis, geochemistry, and other areas of chemistry. You may also select your own, in consultation with us EARLY in the course. We will take some time on the third Monday afternoon in the library to help you find appropriate procedures.
Cumulative Exam and (In-class, Closed Book) ACS Standardized Exam: Problems will emphasize the major points, and will be cumulative. If you have been honestly doing the homework (and not simply looking them up in the back of the book) in addition to the quizzes, you should be well prepared. If you do better on the final than you did on ONE quiz (or if you had to miss it due to a documented illness), the ONE quiz grade will be dropped and a grade calculated from the final will be substituted.
Honor Code: Although a large portion of the problems, labs, etc. in this course will be done in collaboration, on any work that we specifically designate is to be done alone, NO OTHER COMMUNICATION with your peers or outside help will be allowed. Similarly, any work that may require sources of information should be properly footnoted to avoid plagiarism. This includes the use of figures from the text, web sites, etc. We may also designate a specific location for a quiz or test: other locations will be honor code violations unless prior arrangements have been made. Finally, we also assume that such honorable conduct extends to other areas of the course such as the reporting of lab breakage.
American Disabilities Act (ADA): If you have a documented disability on file at the Dean’s office such as a reading dyslexia or other documented reason for needing special consideration (such as a scheduled game off campus, medical school interview, language difficulties, etc.), please notify us immediately so that alternative arrangements can be made. If you become ill and miss a quiz, you will need to a note from Boettcher or similar documentation in order to qualify for a makeup.