The class this semester was different from my others but I also made some friends in the process. I have met most of my goals for this semester and for the class except towards the end I did not do a lab and I also did not keep up with the eportfolio the whole way through but I did still have stuff done within my eportfolio which was not so bad for the most part. I felt like the class went by really fast, I could not believe the amount of work and participation I put in while having to go to work after school every day and still being able to learn most of the material. I know that I definitely struggled the most on topographic and geological maps because I missed a day where we were learning some oof that and it was kinda confusing when I was doing the lab for it, so if I was to give myself a grade for this class I would give myself a B-. I realized I learned so much from this class by showing up and participating.
Intro/Background
My knowledge of the Earth is that it impacts humans positively for us to survive which includes giving us oxygen and being able to have a certain gravity pull for us to withstand our balance to the ground. As for processes, I know that there are many plants that make photosynthesis and our planet revolves around the sun every 365 days a year. Our Earth has an interior and to my knowledge has a core and crust but not sure about anything else. Plate tectonics and boundaries and am unaware but I may know that it might have to do with earthquakes. The rock-forming minerals and properties are unknown to me but I do remember the subject coming up in elementary school. Geological time and charting I never heard of before. Out of everything I do not know about geology I am hoping to get to know more about plate tectonics and how they affect our earth.
Goals/Objectives
My goal in this class is to learn the material that is given so that I know more about the earth and the little things I do not pay attention to that are around me every day. A realistic grade that I would expect to get out of this class would be a B or an A, just because this class is technically a filler for science that I need to take for my degree but I am still interested in this class. One last goal that I have for myself for the class and even for the whole semester would be to stay on track and ask as many questions as possible. I feel that I have met most of my goals in this class except towards the end I did fall behind a little and I noticed that I could have been better at time management but I know that I met a lot of my goals that I have created for myself in the beginning of the year.
Methods
The methods that I used for this class were to show up to class every day, participate, and make sure to do every assignment for Dr. Cooper to show what I have been learning from lectures. and lastly to try and do some eportfolio as I go through the semester. All of my methods really did work except my time management with my eportfolio could have been better and yet I still got through this semester and through this eportfolio as well. While working and going to school, I am pretty sure I only got between an hour or two a day for this class because I had other classes as well and I had work. It was definitely a challenge but it still worked out. Within the last three weeks, I completed three objectives because I was behind on my eportfolio. Even though I was behind I still managed to fit time in to do them spaced out.
Conclusions/Discussions
My involvement with the class was very high as I was present pretty much every day except for one. My assignments were all turned in except for the topographic and geological maps because I did not really understand what was going on in that lab but I did attempt it and only finished a quarter of it. I had the most practice with plate tectonics because it is almost always in everything that we talk about. I would say that I learned about 80% of the basic concepts in this class because our last objectives of time and maps somewhat confused me but the other topics were definitely more well practiced to my knowledge. This class made a huge difference in how I see rocks and how our earth's environment uses rocks for so many things. I loved how I accomplished memorizing so many rocks and minerals because that was not easy to do because some minerals or rocks could look the same. One other thing I am proud of is getting through my presentation for the class because that also was not easy to do since there was so much information that I used for my minerals. I feel that I earned a B- in this class because I know the last objective was definitely not my strongest area of knowledge. I feel that Dr. Cooper would give me the same grade that I would give myself because I know that I do not know all basic knowledge of geology but I do participate with notes, I usually do well on labs and assignments, and lastly I know my eportfolio was a little behind but I was still doing bits and pieces as I went along.