Archived Courses
We have retired these courses for 2010 but may offer them in future years.
Flash Animation
Instructor - Kristin Harris
This is a hands-on introductory course in the basics of animation and website design with Flash. Students will learn how to use Flash's drawing tools to design characters for an animated short and will design an educational Flash document as well as a website.
This course was last offered in 2009, but our 2008 student have posted comments.
The History of Life on Earth
Instructor - Brooke Haiar
This class will explore the basic principles and theories in biology, including evolution, systematics, and relationships among living and fossil animals, and will explore the similarities in body structure for vertebrates. We will also study geology, including geologic time, earth history, and plate tectonics. Discussions will include the basics of how rocks and minerals are formed and how the surface of the Earth changes over time. A large part of the class will focus on the evolutionary history of life, with special emphasis on the Dinosauria. There will be field trips to the Virginia Museum of Natural History, as well as excursions into the field to see rocks and fossils firsthand.
This course was offered in 2009.
Psychology of Law
Instructor - Virginia Cylke
This course examines the application of psychological principles, research, and knowledge to legal issues dealing broadly with the interface between psychology and the law. As such, the course will critically investigate the wide range of contemporary applications of psychology to a variety of topics, including understanding the origins and treatments of criminally deviant behavior, psychological autopsies, criminal profiling, jury selection, eye witness testimony, repressed memory, persuasive communication in the courtroom, child abuse investigation, competence determination, and the insanity defense.
Students wrote a description of this 2008 course.
Settling the Solar System
Instructor - Neal Sumerlin
More than 35 years ago, humans left their last footprints in lunar soil. How can we go back? Can humans establish a permanent presence on Mars? How will we live there? Will humanity spread across the solar system to the moons of the outer planets and beyond? These are the questions we'll explore as we look at plans for extraterrestrial colonies and develop some of our own. Along the way we'll learn about means of propulsion, interplanetary trajectories, the problems of long-term space flight, what places in the solar system might be habitable, and what we might do once we get there.
Students designed a web page for this 2008 course.
