NCLC 120: The Natural World

New Century College, Spring 2009

George Mason University

My Name is Karyn Sykes. Before we began our study of the natural world, We were asked to write two paragraphs about what we believed the course would be like and what we were excited or worried about in the course. Below are the paragraphs that I wrote for that assignment:

I believe that NCLC 120 will cover both math and science, and I am excited to learn about both.  I think the math section will be statistical, but I am not sure what the science section will cover.  I am guessing that the science section will be similar to Biology. I am excited to learn about the world and our environment. I am also excited to see how our study of science will be applied to life. Similarly,  I am interested to see how math will be incorporated into this unit. Finally, I am very excited about all the field trips we will be taking especially the trip to the zoo.       There are a few topics that worry me, but I still want to learn new things. I am a bit worried about the drawing aspect of this unit because I am not very artistic. I am also worried about the strong focus on evolution. I think it will be great to learn about it, but I think we should also discuss other theories about the creation of the world. I do want to learn the evolutionist point of view on the creation of the world because my school primarily focused on the creationist perspective. I hope to learn about our environment and the environment of other species.  I also want to become more knowledgeable on the science that is going on in the world today. I hope be the end of this unit I will have a better perspective on the science and math in the world today.

As the semester wore on, I realized that my ideas about NCLC 120 weren't too far off. I was right about what type of learning i would be doing. NCLC 120 focused on both Statistics and Biology. The field trips were a lot of fun. I did not have to be so worried about the sketch book. It was not graded on how well I could draw. This unit did focus a lot on the theory of evolution, and we did not discuss other theories about creation. I have learned a lot about the science and math in the world today. I also learned a lot about the environment that I live in and the species that surround me.

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