Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The Telecourse Student Guide accompanies Mike Seeds', Dana Backman's, and Michele Montgomery's best-selling HORIZONS HYBRID: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE, Thirteenth Edition. This book engages students by focusing on two central questions: How Do We Know? which emphasizes the role of evidence in the scientific process, providing insights into how science works; and What Are We? which highlights our place as planet dwellers in an evolving universe, guiding students to ask questions about where we came from and how we formed a perspective that the study of astronomy is uniquely positioned to emphasize.
About the Author
Michael A. Seeds has been Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Franklin and Marshall (F&M) College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, since 1970. In 1989, he received F&M College's Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Seeds' love for the history of astronomy led him to create upper-level courses on Archaeoastronomy and Changing Concepts of the Universe. His research interests focus on variable stars and the automation of astronomical telescopes. Mike is coauthor with Dana Backman and Michele Montgomery of HORIZONS HYBRID: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE, Thirteenth Edition, and UNIVERSE HYBRID: SOLAR SYSTEM, STARS AND GALAXIES, Eighth Edition, both published by Cengage Learning. He was Senior Consultant in the creation of the twenty-six-episode telecourse accompanying the book HORIZONS: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE, Twelfth Edition. Dana Backman works for the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, as director of outreach for the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) mission at NASA's Ames Research Center. He also teaches introductory astronomy, astrobiology, and cosmology courses in Stanford University's Continuing Studies Program. From 1991 to 2003, he taught in the physics and astronomy department at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he invented and taught a Life in the Universe course in the interdisciplinary Foundations program. Dr. Backman's research interests focus on infrared observations of planet formation, models of debris disks around nearby stars, and evolution of the solar system's Kuiper Belt. With Mike Seeds, he also coauthored HORIZONS: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE, Twelfth Edition (2012); UNIVERSE: SOLAR SYSTEMS, STARS, AND GALAXIES, Seventh Edition (2012); and FOUNDATIONS OF ASTRONOMY (2013), all published by Cengage Learning. Dr. Backman earned his bachelor's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his doctorate from the University of Hawai'i.