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Course Description
This course is designed for three different kinds of people.
- A person who wants a simple route to 'Science Literacy' - learn the language of Science in 2010.
- A person who wants the teacher's view of Science as it relates to Literature, History, and Psychology.
- A person who wants a look at Science as an artist or poet.

In a word, this course shows that sustainability affects the connections of science to every other part of life. The format of the course is all about touching nature with your own hands.

Sustainable Science supports society with a balanced approach to our stewardship of Earth. It helps us to create processes that can continue without hurting nature. But if we are to successfully teach our youth to live sustainably, our lessons must reach across the curriculum - and they must be deeply experiential. We must show examples that integrate biology with history, physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and even psychology.

Through numerous 'hands-on' scientific demonstrations, this course will examine the actual process by which science is taught. The main objective is for students to come away with an ability to distinguish between processes that are sustainable and ones that must eventually cause a problem. Students will also acquire the skills needed to teach scientific principles to a broad range of learners. Emphasis is placed on experiential learning; students will actually simulate important historical scientific experiments. Special focus will be placed on how well you must know your subject in order to teach someone else. The chronology spans ancient teachings (~5,000 B.C.) to Quantum Physics. In order to gain an integrated view of major changes in human reasoning, readings will include the works of the great scientists and thinkers that are sometimes considered to be outside the realm of science. These include: Homer, Shakespeare, DesCartes, Jefferson, Emerson, Tolstoy, Goethe, and Melville. Topics include Quantum Physics, Einstein's Relativity, Faraday's Field, Darwin's Evolution, Newton's Bucket, Galileo's Pendulum, and a comparison of the modern, Copernican, Ptolemaic, and Aristotelian views of the world. Attention is given to relationships across sciences. In particular, students will note significant areas where psychology, medicine, literature, biology, chemistry, and physics interrelate when they pertain to the human being.

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Conceptual Overview
This course is a tour of the sustainability of various scientific processes in the recorded period of the history of humankind. Careful projections will be made as to the activities from the time periods before recorded history and into the future. We will interweave three distinct strands simultaneously by: tracing the ideas for great innovations and inventions back to their origins, highlighting the biographies of the great scientists, and simulating some of the greatest scientists' original experiments.

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Course Objectives
The goals of this course are:

1. to recognize sustainability in all of its forms;
2. to introduce you to the great scientists through biography & 'hands-on' scientific demonstrations;
3. to experience the actual phenomena by performing simulations of some of the greatest historical experiments of all time.

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Guiding Questions
You will be asked to critically think through some of the big questions of our time.

• When is a process sustainable?
• How does sustainability apply to:
  • science,
  • psychology,
  • philosophy, and
  • anthropology.
• What is matter made of?
• How is one life like collective humanity's life?
• Does humankind have a 'hive mind' similar to creatures like the bees?
• Why do great discoveries get lost and forgotten?
• Is there synchronicity in scientific discoveries?
• If innovation is accelerating, is there a speed limit?
• When did humankind stop living in a sustainable way - and why?
• What controls biology - chemicals or intention?
• What makes natures' cycles - physical reality or beliefs?

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High Level Topic Outline

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Chronology

THE ANCIENTS...
· Definition of Science vs. Technology
· India, Egypt, Islam, & China
· Mathematics
· Astronomy
· Technology
· Greco-Roman Culture
· Pre-Socratics, Pythagorists, & Atomists
· Greek Science: Platonism and Aristotelianism
· Medicine
· Engineering
· The Middle Ages: Christian & Islamic Science
· Physics
· ***
· Pyramid
· Magnet
· Compass
· Abacus
· Odometer
· Astrolabe
· Sun Dial
· Lever
· Wheel
· Inclined Plane
· Acids & Bases
· Salts
· Trebuchet
· Parabolic Motion

THE 16TH & 17TH CENTURIES...
· The Renaissance and Copernicus
· Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler
· Galileo and the Church
· Experimental Science
· Science and the Relation to Technology
· Descartes, Pascal, and Newton
· Mechanical and Mathematical Models
· Newtonian Physics
· ***
· Pendulum
· Clock
· Telescope
· Vacuum Tube
· Mass
· Velocity
· Momentum
· Acceleration

THE 18TH CENTURY...
· Newton's Effect on Science & Society
· The Early Industrial Revolution
· Steam Power & Machines
· Psychology
· The Birth of Chemistry, Geology, & Biology
· Darwin
· ***
· Geared Machines
· Steam Engine
· Railroads
· The Mind
· Phylogeny

THE 19TH CENTURY...
· Industrialization and European Expansion
· Faraday & Field Theory
· The Birth of Electromagnetic Devices
· Universal Lighting
· Aviation
· Automation
· What is Human Progress?
· ***
· Chemical Battery
· Generator
· Electric Motor
· Transformer
· Airplane
· Automaton
· Mass Production

THE 20TH & 21ST CENTURIES...
· Space
· Genetic Engineering
· Albert Einstein, New Physics, & The Bomb
· The Uncertainty Principle
· The Age of the Smart Machines
· The Internet
· Science, Technology, and the Modern World
· Conclusion and Review
· ***
· Rocket
· DNA
· Fission
· Photoelectric
· Computer
· Network
· Virtual Reality
· AI

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