A Novel Approach to Teaching a General Education Course on Astrobiology

Astrobiology Knowledge Assessment for Undergraduates_ This table is patterned after Table 1 in Foster and Drew (2009)_ We show the fraction of correct answers for questions in a multiple-choice format in which students had four possible choices to choose from_

	Knowledge area	Pretest (n = 21)	Posttest (n = 22)	Normalized gain	Effect size	P-value
1	The universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old.	0.57 ± 0.11	0.55 ± 0.11	−0.06	0.17	0.723
2	An astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and the Sun.	0.52 ± 0.11	0.59 ± 0.10	0.14	0.44	0.018
3	Stellar parallax is the apparent shift in position of nearby stars as the Earth moves around the Sun.	0.43 ± 0.11	0.45 ± 0.11	0.05	0.17	0.277
4	The faint young Sun paradox suggests that the Sun was 30% less luminous in the past.	0.19 ± 0.09	0.50 ± 0.11	0.38	2.26	<1×10−3
5	When a sedimentary rock is completely melted it will re-solidify into an igneous rock.	0.38 ± 0.11	0.45 ± 0.11	0.12	0.49	0.022
6	The carbon cycle can’t easily correct for increasing levels of CO2 because the cycle operates far too slowly.	0.48 ± 0.11	0.50 ± 0.11	0.05	0.16	0.277
7	Severe long-term global cooling periods during Earth's history are known as Snowball Earth.	0.00	0.45 ± 0.11	0.45	4.28	<1×10−3
8	The molecular building blocks of life have been found on the Earth, in interstellar clouds and in meteorites.	0.67 ± 0.10	0.73 ± 0.09	0.18	0.43	0.023
9	The search for life in the Solar System is essentially a search for liquid water.	0.33 ± 0.10	0.50 ± 0.11	0.25	1.13	<1×10−3
10	The Cambrian Explosion began approximately 545 million years ago.	0.24 ± 0.09	0.14 ± 0.07	−0.13	0.86	1
11	A chemoautotroph is an organism that obtains its energy from chemical reactions and its carbon from the environment.	0.43 ± 0.11	0.55 ± 0.11	0.20	0.77	<1×10−3
12	Most of the extrasolar planets detected to date are found very close to their parent star.	0.19 ± 0.09	0.59 ± 0.10	0.49	2.96	<1×10−3
13	Current data suggest that the North Pole of Mars is made up of CO2 ice overlaying water ice.	0.14 ± 0.08	0.50 ± 0.11	0.42	2.72	<1×10−3
14	Liquid water cannot exist for very long on the surface of Mars because its atmosphere is too thin.	0.33 ± 0.10	0.50 ± 0.11	0.25	1.13	<1×10−3
15	The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program currently involves listening for signals broadcasted by extraterrestrial civilizations.	0.19 ± 0.09	0.41 ± 0.10	0.27	1.61	<1×10−3

Astrobiology Attitude Assessment for Undergraduates_ This table is patterned after attitudinal questions included in Foster and Drew (2009)_ For each question students were asked to select one of five options in a Likert scale: Strongly agree (1 point), Somewhat agree (2 points), Neither agree nor disagree (3 points), somewhat disagree (4 points), and strongly disagree (5 points)_ Questions are phrased such that higher levels of self-assessment reward a lower score_ The maximum score for each question is taken to be 1_

	Question	Pre-course (n = 21)	Post-course (n = 22)	Normalized gain	Effect size
1	I can list and describe three sub-disciplines of Astrobiology.	4.6 ± 0.2	3.0 ± 0.2	0.45	5.9
2	I know the underlying principles of Darwinian evolution.	2.9 ± 0.2	1.9 ± 0.2	0.53	3.2
3	I can describe two survival mechanisms of an extremophilic microbe.	4.4 ± 0.2	2.3 ± 0.2	0.62	7.2
4	I can describe the steps of solar and planet formation.	3.5 ± 0.2	2.4 ± 0.2	0.45	3.5
5	I have developed science writing skills.	2.7 ± 0.2	2.1 ± 0.3	0.34	1.7
6	I understand the purpose and content of a primary literature research paper.	2.1 ± 0.2	1.7 ± 0.2	0.36	1.6
7	I am comfortable reading the Astrobiology primary literature.	2.8 ± 0.2	2.7 ± 0.3	0.05	0.26
8	I am interested in pursuing a career in science research.	3.9 ± 0.2	3.5 ± 0.2	0.15	1.4
9	I am interested in participating in Astrobiology research.	3.4 ± 0.3	3.4 ± 0.2	0.00	0.00

Science topics by chapter in Contact_

Chapter Number	Science Content
1	Interaction of civilizations at much different technological levels; the number π, which is irrational, transcendental, and normal (although there is no proof as yet about the normality of π. This question becomes pivotal to the ending of Contact); the epistemology of science; the apparent rotation of the celestial sphere and the Earth's spin; and ancient Greek astronomy.
2	Women participation in science; The Fermi paradox (specifically here, the Zoo Hypothesis); the scale of the universe; light pollution; the planet Venus (romantic view, strong radio emission, runaway greenhouse effect); the cosmic 3K background radiation.
3	The inverse square law for light; white noise; the electromagnetic spectrum; the Kardashev scale; the Alpha Centauri system (triple star system, exoplanet in the habitable zone); bandwidth of signal and information content; absorption and scattering of radiation by dust; radio astronomy; quasars and pulsars; the Voyager missions; constellations.
4	Tour of the solar system (from the outside in); sidereal motion; proper motion; planetary formation process; sources of radio interference and disruption; prime numbers; binary numbers; international and global nature of science.
5	Identify Vega in the night sky and Vega's properties; proper and radial motion of stars; Fermat's last theorem and the Goldbach conjecture; the hydrogen 21 cm and the hydroxyl 18 cm spectral lines, polarization modulation.
6	Occam's razor; the “God's in the gaps” argument; skepticism in science; the scientific method; remote sensing; learning about exoplanets from large distances; rarity of newly emergent technological civilizations; UFOs and their explanations.
7	Space race: American and Soviet achievements; space exploration missions (flyby, orbiter, lander or probe, sample return missions); organic molecules in space; Environmental requirements for life – building blocks (Miller-Urey experiment, Viking experiments), energy (sunlight, tidal friction), liquid medium (liquid water and its significance for life, alternative liquids options for life (NH3, CH3OH, CH4, C2H6)—advantages and disadvantages); human evolution; international nature of modern science; use of prime numbers in SETI messages.
8	Criticism of science; science as a driving force for technology; science communication and outreach; correcting nature of science; open-ended goals of science; scientific method; ancient and modern science; Newtonian gravity and Einstein's theories of relativity; impossibility of faster than light travel; age of the Earth and planetary system formation; plate tectonics and continental drift; theory of evolution.
9	Peer-review nature of science publications; how science works; what is consciousness; evolution of languages as an analogue to biological evolution; the Drake equation; solar flares and the active Sun.
10	Science and determinism; randomness and chance in physical processes; Foucault's pendulum; rotation of the Earth; skepticism in science; empiricism in science; scientific method; self-correcting nature of science; science journals and publications; precession of the equinoxes; cosmic background radiation and its isotropy; the Sun as a star; properties and conditions on Mars; Newtonian gravity and the inverse square law; magnetic dipoles; the double helix structure of DNA; no privileged frames of reference; the speed of light as a universal speed limit; stellar types and the H-R diagram; Occam's razor; mass extinctions; the “God in the gaps” argument and creationism.
11	Space colonization; Mars terraforming; Pauli exclusion principle; nuclear disarmament; cartography and projections; Platonic solids; white noise; unity of the human species.
12	Organic chemistry; symmetry and analogies (from alphabets, religions); origin of life; isomers; nucleic acid replication; nuclear energy; the Viking experiments.
13	Correlation v. causation; signal frequency and modulation; the electromagnetic spectrum.
14	What is life? And definitions; viruses; proofs in mathematics; curved space and time; the periodic table of the elements; phase modulation; units of measurements; air turbulence and twinkling of stars; time dilation and relativity; the 1420 MHz line; pendulums; conservation of energy; evolution as a stochastic process; superunification of interactions; atomic motion in matter.
15	Prognostication v. prediction; ammonia as an alternative to water as a solvent; instruments of ancient astronomy; Kepler's laws of planetary motion; gravitational waves and gravitational wave detection; Lysenko and his effect on Soviet molecular biology.
16	Human body in zero gravity conditions; space radiation and its interaction with the human body; controls in scientific experiments; solar flares; ozone and its importance for life; oxygen and its importance for life.
17	Geology and the time scale required for evolution; the galactic and stellar habitable zones; comets; panspermia; geosynchronous orbits; information and life; language and cognition and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
18	Plate tectonics; stellar evolution; origin of the elements in the universe and on Earth; superunification; stellar classification; meteors.
19	Platonic solids; black holes, event horizon, and singularity; causality; tidal forces; spaghettification; the second law of thermodynamics and entropy; stellar corona; planetary formation; gaps in circumstellar disks; shadows in optics; colors of stars and their abundance.
20	First life on Earth on land; spacetime curvature; the Kerr black hole; liquid breathing; longevity of advanced civilizations; the center of the Milky Way and the black hole at its center; wormholes; radiation coming out of black holes; expansion of the universe; future evolution of the universe and the Big Chill.
21	Importance of evidence for science; tensile and compressional stresses; intense radiation and its effects on structures; radioactivity and induced radioactivity; cosmic rays; tidal forces; reentrance through the atmosphere; causality.
22	Conditions in interstellar space; gravitational assist.
23	Maxwell's equations; the Ampere-Maxwell law; wormholes and the Einstein-Rosen bridge; age at which scientists make groundbreaking discoveries; nuclear explosions, radiation contamination; human place in the universe; angular resolution and telescopes; pi as a normal number.
24	Transcendental numbers; geometry of the universe; the Kardashev scale and classification of civilizations; wormholes; black holes; probability for a string of 0s and 1s inside an irrational number and the probability for a coded message.