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About the course: Cultures from around the globe have practiced basic naked-eye astronomy, which includes the motion of the sun. Students in this course learn how other cultures practiced astronomy and how it supported or established their societies. Through lectures and lab teachings, Archaeoastronomy explores the models people have used to understand recurring events in the sky, such as celestial cycles, phases of the moon and movement of the planets.

Instructor: Douglas Ingram, senior instructor, College of Science & Engineering

Class times: Mondays and Wednesdays, 11 to 11:50 a.m., with a two-hour weekly lab

Class size: Maximum of 90 students

Texts: The Cosmic Perspective, 8th Edition, by Jeffrey O. Bennett, Megan O. Donahue, Nicholas Schneider and Mark Voit (Pearson, 2016)

Excerpts from books by Richard Feynman and Ronald Pine

Classwork: Each class starts in darkness for about 10 minutes while Ingram picks a constellation and tells stories both ancient and modern about what’s in that part of the sky.

There are three short-answer exams based on lecture materials, readings, in-class discussions and study guides. The final exam is cumulative.