Cascade Spring 2019
Course Catalog

Have you ever thought about how happiness relates to leadership? What does authentic leadership mean to you? This growing in popularity definition of leadership emphasizes personal growth, self-awareness, and building trusting bonds with those around you. Through Neil Pasricha’s The Happiness Equation, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, and social psychologist Amy Cuddy’s Presence, we will explore ways to develop positive mindsets and practical leadership skills to better navigate social atmospheres. Come discover your own potential for positive impact in everyday life!

We will be looking at the ideologies of several western thinkers (such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others) while considering how they would analyze certain moral and ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas will be taken from scenes from popular Disney, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network shows, or common situations students might find themselves in.

Jhumpa Lahiri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are two brilliant authors who showcase their work brilliantly in short-story format. In this course we will close-read short stories by these authors, discuss, and analyze them in the style of a college literature seminar.

Do you like math? Want to know how to prove an infinite number of claims at once? Or maybe you'd prefer to practice Euler's formula to profoundly provoke praise from your precalculus professor. Or maybe, just maybe, you're curious why I ate my mug and poured coffee on my doughnut. (Topology. I'm talking about topology.) If any of these peak your interest then you're perfect for this class! We'll talk about all the crazy weird (and cool) parts of math that you'll want to know. From Euler's formula to induction to the density of the irrationals on the real line, we'll cover it all. (Don't worry if you didn't get all the terms I just dropped. After all, if you got them then why would you take this class?) Some come on and join us on this adventure through math!


Prerequisites
Knowledge of trig and and exponentials (specifically e) is pretty essential. Also a basic knowledge of complex/imaginary numbers is helpful. (By basic I mean you should know how to figure out what i to any power is.)

How does your brain works? How do you think and store memories? What makes you, you? What happens when things go wrong?

This 5-week course will try to answer these questions and more as we cover a breadth of interesting neuroscience topics. From history to emerging developments, you will learn the ins and outs of this fascinating field.

The lectures included in this course are:

1) Introduction to Neuroscience
2) The Inner Workings of the Neuron
3) Systems Neuroscience
4) Brain Anatomy and Neuropathy
5) Neuroscience Beyond the Classroom


Prerequisites
No prior experience in neuroscience is required - just an eagerness to learn!

This class will introduce students to a wide variety of challenges facing urban sustainability, farming, and pollinators. The basics of honeybee life cycle, health, nutrition, and stewardship will be discussed. Modern beekeeping practices, equipment, and management techniques will be covered. Topics on practical beekeeping and challenges associated with urban beekeeping will be addressed specifically. Students will learn the special role that pollinators in general and apis mellifera specifically play in our local ecosystem.

We will also discuss the role that urban farming plays in areas traditionally defined as "food deserts". Members from the UChicago RSO Phoenix Farms will share their experience in keeping bees and urban farming while discussing ongoing initiatives in environmental stewardship.

What is a genome? How and why did the information in our DNA change over time and over the course of evolution? How can modern technology allow us to analyze and interpret differences in the information carried in cells by DNA, and why is understanding these differences so important in understanding how our bodies function and fight disease? How can genetic information help us learn more about animal species on the brink of extinction, or about nature here in the big city? And could we ever use DNA from an extinct species to bring it back to life, Jurassic Park-style? In this class we’ll answer these questions and more, through lecture, discussion, and some hands-on demonstrations and activities.


Prerequisites
Some past exposure to high school biology and chemistry is helpful but not required

This course will be an accessible introduction to the wonders of the quantum world and how scientists are trying to harness the power of quantum mechanics to build quantum computers, which will revolutionize the fields of physics, chemistry, and cryptology.


Prerequisites
TBA

Light is EVERYWHERE. Sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't. But light is so much more than something that keeps the dark away. Light is one of the only things that travels at the maximum speed allowed by the universe, and we use it all the time. It's the reason why your Bluetooth speakers work, why we can tell what elements are on planets outside our solar system, and why you can send text messages to your bffs. Did I mention it can set things on fire? Come learn about what light is, why it's weird, and how we can use it for cool and useful things!