FORT 140 Forest
Surveying
Spring 2008 - Syllabus
Instructor:
Dr. Peter Linehan, Associate Professor of
Forestry
220 Science -
Telephone 717-749-6089
email: pel2@psu.edu
Office Hours:
Wednesday and Friday 10-12.
Email or telephone for
an appointment.
Stop by when I am in
the office.
Class Website:
Materials for this course can be found on
the ANGEL course management system located at http://cms.psu.edu .
If you are registered for the course it will appear when you log in to ANGEL.
Class Meeting Times:
Lecture: Thursday 9:00 to 10:50am in
General Studies 208.
Lab: Tuesday from 9:00 to 11:50am, starting in General Studies 208, and
then going outside for most labs. Be ready for any and all weather conditions.
Text and Equipment:
Surveying
by McCormack is the main text. We will be using the fifth edition. It is
available in the campus bookstore. Most of the equipment you should already
have from FORT 130:
Silva hand compass, quadrant model (in the
bookstore).
30/60 triangle, 45/45 triangle
Straight edge.
Protractor.
Engineer scale.
Graph paper (metric and imperial units). I
will show you a program to print your own. You need to know the graph paper spacing.
Hard lead pencils for field notes and
drafting. (4H is good)
A USB flash drive is highly recommended. (Minimum
128mg, 256mg recommended.)
You will also need a water-resistant field notebook, which
is available in the bookstore
Course Objectives:
This course builds on the work you have
done in FORT130, Forest Mapping Systems. Surveying has always been an integral
skill in forestry. Before any management activities are undertaken it is
critical to know the property boundaries and characteristics. Accurate maps are
vital to visualize forest stands, boundaries, roads, drainages and
virtually any land characteristic. Over the years, many foresters have
supported themselves by working as surveyors too. However, in the last thirty
years the fields of forestry and surveying have specialized and diverged. This
is partly due to new technologies and equipment and partly due to increasingly specialized
knowledge needed for each field.
At the end of this course you will not be a
professional surveyor. Instead you will gain a basic knowledge of surveying
skills that are necessary for forest technicians. Some of the skills we will
cover include:
distance measurements
by pacing and taping
slope measurements
angle measurements
traverse calculations
proper data recording
techniques
error and precision
calculations
map drawing and
presentation
parcel boundary search
in county deeds' offices
GPS and digital mapping will be used in the
course. Because of their critical importance as legal and historical
records, we will place a strong emphasis on proper field notes and reports.
Evaluation:
Your work will be evaluated as follows:
|
Exam 1 |
20% |
|
Exam 2 |
20% |
|
Exam 3 -- Final
|
20% |
|
Lab Reports and
Exercises |
30% |
|
Quizzes |
10% |
|
TOTAL |
100% |
Your final grade will be calculated as follows:
|
Grade |
Percentage earned |
|
A |
91 - 100 |
|
A- |
89-90 |
|
B+ |
87 - 88 |
|
B |
81 - 86 |
|
B- |
79-80 |
|
C+ |
77 - 78 |
|
C |
70 - 76 |
|
D |
65 - 69 |
|
F |
< 65 |
Class Policies:
General Philosophy
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR REACHING YOUR OWN EDUCATIONAL GOALS. This means that class attendance,
completion of assignments, reading the text, studying for and taking tests etc.
are all your responsibility. The instructor cannot help you if you don’t ask
for help.
Field
Labs
Field
labs will take place in all weather conditions. It is your responsibility to
dress appropriately for a lab, including footwear, hats, gloves, raingear, etc.
For safety reasons, if you are not dressed appropriately, the instructor may
exclude you from that day's lab. Hard hats aren't necessary for most Surveying
labs. If they are, it will be announced ahead of time.
Assignments:
Many assignments will be completed in your field notebook. Others
will be uploaded to the course website or reports handed in.
Late assignments
I expect that you will hand in completed assignments on time unless I postpone the work or you make prior arrangements with me. If you find that you cannot complete an assignment on time then you should contact me (by phone, email, or in person) telling me how much you have completed and what is your problem with completing the assignment. I am looking for specific information on the difficulties you are having, not just that you couldn’t do it. That way I can help you or we can work out what steps you should take to understand and complete the work. I reserve the right to give a reduced grade or 0 for late assignments.
Quizzes
Quizzes
will be on-line and in-class.
Attendance / Participation
Your attendance is not included in your grade. To succeed in the course you have to attend regularly. The textbook is very comprehensive, but you won’t understand many of the skills unless you participate fully. If for some reason you can’t make it to class, please contact me before class so you can make arrangements for missed work.
Under the policy of the
Please schedule your doctor, dentist, orthodontist, and other appointments outside of class times. If your parent or significant other does your scheduling, please let them know about you class times.
I would like to remind you of the Penn State Principles (http://www.psu.edu/ur/principles.pdf ), which have been adopted by the University:
- I will
respect the dignity of all individuals within the
- I will practice academic integrity.
- I will demonstrate social and personal responsibility.
- I will be responsible for my own academic progress and agree to comply with all University policies.
Professional Expectations
The forest technology program is designed to prepare you for a career in natural resources when you graduate. You should treat your courses as you would a professional job. I have the following expectations for your performance in class, in the field, and in completing your assignments.
- Come to class on time.
- Prepare any assigned readings or work ahead of time.
- Be ready to participate in class discussion or to take an assignment.
- Come dressed appropriately according to the guidelines listed above.
- You will not smoke cigarettes or chew tobacco during class and outdoor labs. If we have a break during class you can smoke in the designated areas. Due to forest fire concerns, no smoking is allowed in the forest.
- Cell
phones should be turned off during class and during quizzes and tests.
This includes internet-enabled and text messaging devices.
Academic Integrity
When you hand in assignments I assume it is your own work. Cheating and plagiarism is wrong. I may assign a grade of zero for assignments where I know cheating or plagiarism has occurred. I can also assign a grade of 'F' in the course because of this infraction. For group projects and research assignments, we will discuss ahead of time what constitutes doing your own work and what is cheating.
Here is the University College Academic Integrity Policy that we will follow: https://teamworks.campuses.psu.edu/uc/Academic%20Programs/UCpolicies.pdf
The
Computer Usage
Computer systems have become very powerful and indispensable tools in all our lives. It's becoming hard to remember how we did things before the computer age. As with all good things there are also negative uses of this new technology, including software piracy, network hacking, and the creation of viruses. In this course we will follow the University's computing policies which can be found at http://its.psu.edu/security.html
Official Academic
Policies
The official academic policies for
Note to students with disabilities: It is