WELCOME

Welcome to Geography 125, Physical Geography (GEO 125). This course will provide students with a comprehensive overview of the Earth's physical environment from the atmosphere to the lithosphere through a physical geography perspective by examining the processes that create this environment. By successfully completing this course students will have an appreciation for the Earth's natural systems of weather, climate, geologic structures, and topography.

Because this course is offered as an online course, it may be a unique experience for some students, although this may be just one of several courses other students will take online. What makes this course unique is the delivery method of the learning experience. Using the Web reduces the constraints imposed by geography and time. Students could be taking this course from anywhere in the world where they have access to the Web. In addition, students can interact with the class when it fits their schedule. There is no regular set meeting time for the class. So if a student wants to do class 2 a.m. on one day and 1 p.m. the next day, that is fine as long as they complete activities by the end of the day when they are due. Note that this is not a correspondence course in which there are broad deadlines. In UW Colleges Online, courses adhere to a strict semester (or summer class) schedule. Instead of in a classroom, students will be interacting as a virtual learning community over the Web.

WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE

Note that this course is offered for 5 credits and it automatically includes a lab. Again this course will most likely be totally different than any college class students have ever taken, because of the way it's being delivered via the Web. Students will be more responsible for their own learning than in a typical course, although the Web does allow for a virtual classroom. However, this classroom will obviously be different than a face-to-face class.

Along with their online activities students will also be doing lots of work off-line, mostly reading in the required text and working on lab exercises from the lab manual. Students are strongly encouraged to schedule regular times for doing both online (on the Web) and off-line ("homework") activities for the class, totaling at least 15 hours per week (and if this is the summer version more like 25+ hours per week). The comprehensive nature of this course means that students will be studying lots of different topics. Note while this might seem unreasonable, this is actually the recommendation for any class. The rule of thumb is 3 hours per week per credit during a regular academic year semester. For the traditional class, this time includes any time a student spends in the classroom, whether it is a "real" classroom or a virtual one. If students cannot make this commitment of 15 hours per week, they should consider dropping before they have invested too much time in the class. The instructor will expect a lot from their students. This is a college course and just because it is delivered online does not mean it has been "dumbed" down.

To be successful, before the semester starts students should make a weekly schedule in which they determine specific time periods for working on this class. Students should review their schedule, adjust it if need be, after a couple of weeks to make sure they have enough time to complete all of their learning activities.