Introduction to Physical Geography Online

Fall 2023 Pre-Enrollment Information

Welcome! I'm Allison Lenkeit Meezan, and I look forward to meeting you this Spring quarter in Introduction to Physical Geography online at Foothill College. 

This is not the class syllabus, but rather some information provided prior to the start of the term to help prepare you for class and answer some common questions. I will give you a detailed syllabus on the first day of class, September 25,  2023.

This course uses the Canvas course management system. This is where you will access lectures, labs, office hours and links to optional Zoom meetings. You need to be enrolled to log into the course site.  Our course site will be available to you a few days before the start of the quarter. 


Course Essentials

What is Physical Geography?

Physical geography is the study of the earth's dynamic systems: its air, water, weather climate, landforms, rocks, soils, plants, ecosystems and biomes and how humans interact with the earth's systems. Physical geography is the study of the world around you. It will help you to understand why San Francisco is always cold and foggy, why we have earthquakes, and what causes seasons. Everyone, every day, interacts with the earth's dynamic systems. I challenge you to join me on an exploration of the complex, and exciting world in which you live!

This is an introductory level college course in Physical Geography. It requires no prior experience with the subject. It is fully transferable as a lab science (including UC and CSU).


Pre-requisites: What you need before you take this class

This class has no pre-requisites, other than enthusiasm and curiosity. 

Fluency in written and spoken English is strongly encouraged. We will also be using math in the labs. Successful completion of pre-Algebra is strongly encouraged. We will be interpreting graphs, using fractions and percentages and solving simple algebra equations such as 3Y=15, solve for Y. 

If you have questions or concerns about your preparation for this class, please email me. Science is all about observing the world around you. In this class we will build on your existing skill set to become practiced observers of the world around us and build out skills of observation, pattern recognition and inference.

Required textbooks: Come to class prepared

Books are posted at the Foothill Bookstore. We have three books for this class. Plan ahead to have your books for the first week of class. 

I encourage you to visit sites such as Chegg.com to purchase the 11th edition of the textbook (no digital resources needed), the 22nd edition of Goodes Atlas and a used copy of the book club book to save you $$$. All of these can be found for 90% less than the new editions. All three required books can be purchased for less than $40 total. I will provide reading lists for the older editions. Limited quantities of the books will be available to check out for the quarter from the Foothill Library at the Sunnyvale campus. Please reach out to the library for more on this.

You should also have access to a computer. While our class is mobile friendly (and the Canvas app is great), many of our labs require using online mapping sites that you will need to access with a computer web browser. The Foothill library at the Sunnyvale Campus will also distribute loaner Chromebooks in the first week of the quarter.

How to be successful in our class

Set aside time for learning

Fitting in school while balancing work, family and the stresses of post-pandemic life, is not easy. Getting good grades can be stressful enough, without recovery from a global pandemic, climate change and a incendiary socio-political landscape.  To be successful in our class, allow yourself the time and space you need to work through the material and reach out to me or your peers if you are stuck. 

You should plan to 'attend' class regularly by logging in 2-3 times per week.  Set a regular schedule for yourself, just as if you were taking a face to face class. Plan to sit down for some quality time with Physical Geography several times per week. In the face to face classroom, we would meet for 7 hours per week (4 hours of lecture, 3 hours of lab). Budget in additional time to complete homework, readings etc, and you are looking at 10-15 hours each week for our class.

No ghosting: If you do not turn in three assessment items in a row (quizzes, labs, exams, discussions) without contacting me, you will be dropped from the course for 'non attendance'. 

Your first week of class

Class begins Monday,  September 25, 2023. I will open our Canvas course a few days before the start of the quarter so you can look around. I will email all enrolled and waitlisted students the Thursday before our quarter begins to let you know the class is open and share login information. 

I release new class material every Monday in our Canvas classroom. Plan to login and spend 2-3 hours on the class early in the week.  We will jump right in with course material, and you will have an opportunity to get to know your classmates. It is important that you login and get started with our class material in the first week. The quarter system moves really quickly, and we cover a lot of material in this 5 unit lab class, so I want to make sure that you start the quarter off right and feel confident with our class.

The college requires that we drop 'no show' students,  so you will have a required (very short) activity that must be completed by Friday of the first week of class. If you have not completed the activity by Friday, September 29,  and have not contacted me, you will be dropped as a ‘no show’. 

Make sure to come to class prepared with your three textbooks! 

No timed exams or required live (synchronous) meetings in this class

Our class does not have any timed exams. Instead we focus on gaining proficiency with course learning outcomes. We have five required labs, bi-weekly discussions, open book, un-timed proficiency quizzes and a final lab project and final course project that you will have several weeks to work on. 

Each week there is an optional live zoom ''Lab workshop'' where we will go over common questions and sticking points in the week's lab and also talk about current events related to our class content. You will have time to connect with classmates and work on your lab. The Fall 2023 Lab Workshop will be Tuesdays from 4-5PM on zoom.

In addition, each week I will record an approximately 30 minute video that will talk about current events related to our class, and connect the written lecture and textbook readings to daily life. The video will be posted by Monday evenings. You should plan to make time to watch the video within the week. The video has embedded quiz questions to check your understanding of what we are talking about in the video. You can take the quiz (and rewatch the video) as many times as you need. 


Labs and Discussions

Labs are the heart of this class. Labs give us the opportunity to apply all of the material we learn about in lecture! This 5 unit lab science class has weekly lab activities (totaling 3 hours per week). Lab write-ups are due every two weeks. 

You will also have a major summative project that will allow you to take a deep dive into a topic that we have covered in class that really interests you. You will have three weeks to work on the project, and will have several options for presenting it (multimedia, video, web page etc). 

We will also have weekly reading quizzes and bi-weekly discussions based on the ‘book club’ book. This quarter, our book club will be ‘Under a White Sky, the Nature of the Future’ by Elizabeth Kolbert.

If you are taking our class from outside the USA: We use several websites from the US Government that are blocked by internet providers in some countries. Check with the international students office and make sure you can set up a VPN so you can access required sites.


Accommodations for students with learning differences

The Foothill Disability Resource Center can arrange for extended testing time, low distraction testing environments and adaptive equipment. The Disability Resource Center can also help build a customized accessibility plan for you to make the course material accessible to you based on your individual needs. 

If you have a visual impairment that requires that you use a screen reader to interpret graphics, it is extremely important that you contact me immediately and also notify your DRC case worker as we will need to work together to build in customized accommodations for the maps and software in this course. 

Testimonials

"I just wanted to take a moment to let you know how much I enjoyed your online Physical Geography course this quarter. I think it was one of the best classes that I have taken either online or on campus. I really got a lot out of it and I feel as if I have a whole new appreciation and respect for the world we live in."

“I didn’t think that it was possible for an online class to be as good as a regular one, but yours is better! I love being able to work inside my schedule and use all the web maps and satellite data. Your conferences are the best part of the class, they feel like a real, personal tutorial, and you are interesting and funny. Thank you!”


Still have questions? 

You are always welcome to email me at meezankaren@foothill.edu.  Once our class starts, I will show you how to communicate directly with me through the Canvas Inbox messaging system. I get a lot of emails, so I filter out student messages sent through Canvas so that I can make you, my students, my top priority.

For questions about whether this class class will transfer to your selected four-year school, or whether you can transfer in credit from another school instead of taking this class, please reach out to the Counseling department at Foothill. They are best equipped to answer your question (and if you email me to ask, I will probably send you to them anyway!)

For more information about Geography or Geospatial Technology degrees and certificates at Foothill, see our Geography program website and the Geospatial Technology program website.