University 113 Spring 2005

ML 251 Tu-Th: 2:30-3:50 PM

Technological Disasters and Catastrophes

"If anything can go wrong, it will."

Murphy's Law

The class periods will be used primarily for discussion. We intend only one or two lectures. There will be a couple of videos and brief presentations by outside experts.

In any class emphasizing discussion, there will be some students who participate in the discussion often, some who participate occasionally and some who never open their mouths. Those who are silent often learn as much as anyone from the discussion and do very well in all other evaluations. Thus, reasonably, many students believe that there is no need for them to participate in class discussions. The teachers of this course do not share this belief, because one of our prinicipal aims is to develop the ability of students to participate in critical discourse. Therefore, we have adopted measures to make class participation part of the evaluation of students (see Grading).

The class will be divided into several teams (we are thinking 4 or 5) to study an report on a fairly complex issue. Each team will choose a topic from a fairly short list of possible topics. In order to make this fair, there will be a drawing for order of choice. There will be preliminary oral reports, a required team written report draft, a final oral presentation, and a final written team report.