Extra-credit assignment:

Please go on-line to any of the five virtual exhibits on the front page of our class website [return to this page here--look on the bar on the left]]. Choose any one that interests you, from 'Medicine and Biology' to 'Museum of the History of Science.'

Find a part of the exhibit that particularly interests or intrigues you -- such as early telescopic observations of the Moon, or galleries of scientific instruments, or a virtual tour of Galileo's villa and laboratory. Look carefully at the items being displayed. If you were alive in the 16th or 17th centuries, what would you have needed to know to have participated in this work? Who would you have been; what would have been your motivations? What was the world-view of those of you making observations or doing experiments; what were the large controversies in natural philosophy at the time?

Please write your responses to the Discussion Board in Blackboard. Essays (circa 2-3 pages, double-spaced) due Friday, June 10th. Submit to Blackboard . Worth up to ten percent of course grade.