Week One Blog

This week's TIME articles taught me a lot about animals and how they to have feelings. I found it interesting how animals also build connections and social networks with one another. Just like us, they are conscious creatures that need fellow companions in their life. It is important to takeaway that animals have feelings like us and we, as a society, should be more aware of this fact. One key example that I particularly liked was how crows would often surround another crow once it has passed and stand in silence. This example shows how crows and other animals also mourn losses and are aware of certain things that I previously did not think that they were aware of. The final takeaway from the TIME articles is how animals also work together in groups and have a social hierarchy in order to ensure survival for their species. I found this interesting because like humans, they also have close-knit communities that help them protect each other. Overall, they are wise and have feelings just like us, so it is important to treat them with respect at all times.

Syllabus and Grade Contract Summary

• The three major assignments in this course are: the Scicomm Project, the Advocacy Project, and the Final Portfolio. These MUST be turned in to pass the class.

• The policy for late work is that we are able to submit work until 14 days after the initial due date for 9/10 points. Each three late assignments will result in a subtraction of 1 points from the grade contract of 84.

• This class uses a grade contract because Professor Haas wants to ensure that we write and turn in assignments to learn and get better at English. In conventional grading, students just turn in assignments for a grade rather than actually getting better at the subject.

• Students are able to tabulate their grade at any point of the course by tracking how many 9/10 and 11/10s they have. For every three 9's, one point will be deducted from the original grade of 84 and one point will be added for every three 11's they have. Any 0's will result in a deduction of one point and any extra credit assignments with 10/10 will result in plus one point.

• Overall, the grade contract and syllabus is formatted in a way to ensure that students leave this class with better writing skills and not just a good grade.