Cascade! Winter 2009
Course Catalog

In this 5-week studio class, you will learn the techniques involved in producing computer based music. You will leave the class with a song you’ve personally produced and any software you need to continue creating music on your own, if you wish to do so. Topics include: DAWs and Sequencing, VSTs, Sampling and Quality, Mixing/EQ/Compression, and Export and File-types. Genres include: Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop, Break Beat, and Dance.

In this class on cinema aesthetics, we will discuss the basics of filmmaking and criticism. In five weeks, we will learn the history of film, how it works, and how we decide which films we like and which we do not. The goal of the class is to get to the point where we can talk about movies at an informed level, and use what we know to point out what we like. If that sounds scary, it is only a long way of saying: that by learning a little bit more about how to watch movies, we will learn how to enjoy watching them more.

What is justice? Does God exist? How do you know you’re not dreaming? Using a discussion-based format designed specially for young people, this class will help you use argument and evidence to come up with your own responses to important philosophical questions. There will be no grading, no wrong answers, and no previous background in philosophy required. In the first half of the class, we will use stories and pictures to kick off the conversation; in the second half, we will look at some ideas of famous Christian philosophers.

All of you live in or near one city: Chicago. How often have you wanted to change the way it looks or feels? What would you do if you could draw yourself a brand new neighborhood to live in? How would you design it? In this class, you’ll get a chance to think about this question, and all sorts of other questions related to the ways cities are designed. The focus will be on the visual, and where the visual meets the practical: urban design and architecture, as opposed to the politics and economics of city planning. Each class will be a mix of some history, some ideas, and a whole lot of drawing and participation... so come ready to think, and ready to visualize your ideas with pen and paper. It’s perfectly fine if you’re not very experienced with drawing... but you need to be willing to try, because we’ll do a lot of it, and it’ll be an important way for you to think about your ideas and communicate them to others. We’ll build up to a final project in which you’ll choose a part of Chicago you want to redesign and start to think about how you’d redesign it. (Note: we encourage students interested in the city of Chicago to take both this class and Class #11, which is about Chicago’s history.)

Do you ever wonder about what is really going on in our heads when we pay attention or daydream, sense and perceive, learn or forget? In this class, students are invited to journey from Freud's couch to the fMRI scanner and beyond by taking part in a variety of psychological experiments and analyses, both in the role of experimenter and in the role of subject. Through activities and discussions, we will cover topics ranging from the societal concerns of reducing prejudice and improving education to child development to the treatment of psychological disorders and learning disabilities to the perception of colors, sounds, shapes, and categories. We will focus on learning to approach everyday problems and occurrences from a psychological perspective, and we will use this new insight to improve our critical thinking skills and to increase our academic creativity.

This class will focus on helping you understand and make arguments about what evening news broadcasters vaguely refer to as ‘the economy.’ We’ll talk about some of the most important fundamental concepts of economics such as incentives, scarcity, supply and demand, and the role of money. Then we’ll apply that to real-world topics like the current financial crisis, education, investing, and the environment. By the end of the class, you’ll be able to better understand news coverage on economic and financial issues and also talk about both personal choices and public policy using basic economic reasoning.

What do Al Capone and Richard Wright, the Columbian Exposition and the Stock Yards have in common? These individuals, events and places all illuminate di erent, fundamentally important aspects of Chicago, the windy city, the city of broad shoulders, the metropolis of the west. With each class focusing on one of the above, we'll be using maps, news articles, charts, literature clips and crime reports to examine gang activity in Chicago, the Prohibition Era, African American and European immigration to the city, segregation and public housing, union activity and more. On the last day of class, students will pick a topic that interested them and use some of the databases we presented to gather a bit of information on it. (Note: we encourage students interested in the city of Chicago to take both this class and Class #A5, which is about city design.)

We know that you know what you know, but do you know that we don’t know what you know that you know? Do you want to know how to make others know what you know? (Do you want to learn how to teach what you know?) This class has a simple aim: to teach you how to teach. While we can’t teach you everything about teaching (we don’t know everything...), by the end of the class you will be able to teach your own class (and you will even get the chance to teach it at Splash! Chicago next fall). While the class is primarily focused on teaching, don’t be put off if you don't want to be a teacher! This class will help you explain your ideas more clearly, and help you to think about them in ways that you hadn't thought of before. (Note: this class only will have a sixth meeting on Thursday, March 5th.)

Bizarrely disproportionate sexual features -- like enlarged testicles in Cape ground squirrels -- can confer reproductive advantage. Yet frequently these encumbering sexual features make it harder for an individual organism to survive, so that sexual selection favors traits that are naturally selected for removal. In our class, we will discuss how natural and sexual selection lead to evolution. In particular, we will look at competition, promiscuity, and the propulsion of genetic information. We will glance back 300 million years -- when Tully monsters swam the tropical, muddy estuaries of Chicago -- for clues to understanding the organisms that thrive right outside our classroom.

In this class, you will be able to create your own inspiring and creative pieces of writing. Instead of strictly reading a preselected pile of books, poems, and short stories, you’ll partake in writing games and activities to help get your creative juices flowing. You will also be required to express your imagination in each class and will be encouraged to write on your own outside of class, if you don’t do so already. All are welcome, from those who are terrified to see what comes off the tip of their pen(cil) to those who have poems written all over their belongings.

In this course, we will introduce you to the basics of the US legal system and how it functions. In addition, through a discussion-based learning method, we hope to encourage critical thinking regarding America’s justice system. For students who dream of one day becoming a lawyer, police officer or judge, this class is a great way to begin to understand the roles that each of these individuals have within the legal system. If you are interested in learning more about American law, we certainly have a place for you too! We believe that it's extremely important for all citizens to understand how the legal system operates and their individual rights and responsibilities. So all are welcome! You will learn a great deal!

Wouldn’t you like to be able to rotate a teacup 720 degrees in one hand without moving your body, breaking your arm, or spilling the tea? In this class, to the amazement of your friends and family, you’ll learn how. Rotating a tea cup 360 degrees in this way requires that you get all twisted up, but by rotating another 360 degrees, you magically untwist. This tea trick is possible because of something deep and intriguing about the nature of spatial symmetries: something that martial artists, physicists, and mathematicians have all come to know through experience. Unsure how this could be a math class? You’ll find that math is not just about weird symbols and equations: we won’t do any of that stuff here. We will explore symmetries of three dimensional objects and, through this exploration, discover an explanation for the tea trick. Along the way, we'll play with rope and extension cords, spheres, fun models, and even watch some martial arts. Thankfully, symmetry is something that can be experienced by anyone, so no background is necessary. If you're lookin' to get so twisted up that you're actually no longer twisted, drop by to Something Twisted This Way Comes.

This class will combine the basics of genetics and experimenting to teach you the value and power of research, and what it can reveal about science. The first part of the class will expose you to fundamental genetic concepts. Then, we’ll use that foundation to perform one or two experiments in a lab.