Semester:
Offered:
Miaki Ishii (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences)
First-Year Seminar 23I 4 credits (fall term) Enrollment: Limited to 12
Note: Students are expected to attend Tuesday evening movie viewing sessions (time TBD). This seminar is highly participatory and collaborative, and students should be ready to engage not only with the material, but also with one another.
Prerequisites: Students must be comfortable with high-school level math and science.
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions can have devastating effects on society, but are often over-exaggerated for the silver screen. How can we tell what is believable and what is not? Participants in this seminar will watch one Earth-science related movie each week, will learn background about the science behind the natural disasters portrayed on film, and then will apply math and physics concepts and equations to develop "back-of-the-envelope" calculations that assess realism. Students will be exposed to a wide variety of Earth-science topics and should walk away not only with the ability to point out flaws on-screen, but also the ability to explain natural phenomena in the world around them.