Leadership in the Digital Age: The leaders of tomorrow will combine leadership skills with a grasp of technology. Develop the skills and practices you will need to exercise leadership in the digital age. We will explore prominent leadership theories and philosophies, including Adaptive Leadership, Servant Leadership and Transformational Leadership. Students will consider the impact of social media and technology on leadership in today’s world. We will also look at the importance of self-awareness and mindfulness in a leader and at the difference between leadership and authority. Students will learn about different personality types and discover how personality type informs the way a person interacts with individuals and groups. Students will also examine what their core values are and consider how such values affect the practice of leadership.

Finding Your Passion and Purpose: Time and attention are limited resources. Learn to cut through the noise and create space for reflection, curiosity and self-exploration as you rediscover what you want from life. In today’s attention economy, we seem to be doing more but achieving less. Everyone and everything are vying for our attention and making us feel busier than ever before. How we spend our time and where we focus our attention are choices we make every day, often without realizing it. Students in this class will gain an understanding of the attention economy and the factors that contribute to it. They will also develop techniques to maintain free time in each day. The class will help students clarify their values and figure out how to live in alignment with those values.

Disease Detectives: An Introduction to Epidemiology: What is epidemiology? Why does it matter? This course provides students with an exciting introduction to epidemiology. The course begins with a review of the history of epidemiology and key concepts in population health. Then, students will learn how to conduct epidemiologic research (identify health problems, develop hypotheses, design studies, analyze data, draw conclusions and present findings). Lastly, students explore real life applications of epidemiology and the diverse set of career paths that are available to epidemiologists. The course will engage students in collaborative learning through group discussion, case studies, activities, and a team project.

Neuroscience: From Brain to Behaviors: This course offers an exciting introduction to neuroscience. Through a combination of lecture, laboratory experiments, and group projects, students will explore how the brain works and how neuroscientists design experiments to discover new brain functions. This class will begin with an introduction to the anatomy of the brain, the neurons that compose it, and the methods of communication between these neurons. Then, students will explore how changes in the environment (sensory cues) are represented by the brain and processed to produce appropriate behaviors (motor outputs). Finally, students will investigate disorders of the nervous system to better understand the devastating consequences of any disruption to the complex functioning of the brain. Many sub-fields of neuroscience will be explored in this course to provide a broad overview of how the brain works, which should be useful to everyone, but especially to students interested in medicine, biology, psychology, chemistry or neuroscience.

Hands-On Computing for Cognitive Science:

To explore Cognitive Science and gain hands-on practical skills in programming, students will learn how to simulate agents/robots to complete goal oriented tasks as well as a variety of natural systems from physics and biology. No previous programming experience required, this course is intended to help students build foundational computational skills. We will be using Processing programming language. Processing is an open-source graphical library and integrated development environment built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming in a visual context.

Along the way, we will learn about the history of cybernetics, chaos theory, feedback loops, and circular causality. This class is designed to develop hands-on skills for fundamentals in computer programming and computational modeling of cognition. We will create computational models of weather patterns, predator/prey models, dancing, maze navigation, and students will create a final project of their own.

Introduction to Cognitive Science: Cognitive science is the study of the mind through psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy. In short, it’s thinking about how we think. We’ll learn about the brain, artificial intelligence (robots), and how we produce and understand language. We’ll explore many topics, such as how we learn and perceive the world around us, experimental techniques like fMRI and EEG, and skills like statistics and computer programming. The course will also highlight the importance of cognitive science and the many ways it is all around us. Our exploration of cog sci will take numerous forms, such as reading and writing, discussing and listening, and experimenting and observing.

Introduction to Bioinformatics: As contemporary biologists we have entered an age where the use of computers in our daily work has become all but essential. The manipulation and analysis of DNA, RNA and protein data by electronic means has become a routine task. Further, the amount of DNA, RNA and protein sequence data we are putting into databases every day is expanding at a geometric rate, and with coming advances in sequencing technology this rate is only expected to increase. With all this new data, analysis by individual humans is simply not possible. Thus, in the past 15 years, computational biology has emerged as a field concerned with storage, manipulation, and extraction of valuable information from all this new data. However, because computational biology is an emerging field, organized courses are generally saved for higher-level study, and often are not required parts of an undergraduate curriculum. We seek to fill this void in education, and create a course that will introduce students to bioinformatics at an earlier point in their education. This knowledge will prove to be not simply useful, but essential, for any student considering a degree in any area of biology and medical science.

Living Structures: Walking Beasts: It walks as if possessed by a mind of its own – no motor, no gas, no batteries, just a series of lurching dance steps along the boundaries of reality and imagination. It’s called a walking beast, and in this class, students will study, design and build this fascinating contraption and then set it in motion. We will spend the early part of the week exploring the mechanics of these machines and building the basic parts. Then we begin the assembly. Finally, we will decorate the beast and set it loose with the help of a leaf blower. Concepts we will cover include engineering, wind power, gravity, frictional rotation and structural integrity. Together we will explore how artistic creativity can drive scientific design and vice versa.

Introduction to Fluid Mechanics in Engineering: Fluids surround us and play a pivotal role in our world. From the blood that runs in our veins, to the oceans that cover our planet, understanding fluid mechanics is crucial in scientific and engineering endeavors. In this course, we will learn the basics of fluid mechanics as well as how the subject is applied in engineering. Students will test their new knowledge on problems from the real word, and they will perform hands-on experiments in order to see fluid mechanics in action.

Introduction to Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science: Mechanical Engineering covers the creation, design, and analysis of many types of systems, technologies, and materials. This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering, as well as providing a brief introduction to Materials Science, and showing what role materials play for Mechanical Engineers. Students will also receive hands-on experience in applying mechanical engineering principles in several fun experiments throughout the course.

Intro to Programming Using JavaScript:

Introduction to Python Programming: In this course, students will learn to program in Python. This course is aimed at students who may, or may not, have any experience at all, but are beginners in Python. Students will learn the basics of how python works including: manipulation of strings, math operations, writing functions, and many more things. This class will be taught using Python 3. In addition, as a new feature, this class will have projects based on designing games and art using python. Note: This course will speed up or slow depending on the majority of students acclimation to the material.

Note: This course was challenging to college students so please ask me to slow down if necessary.

Programming for Future Scientists and Engineers: Mechanical Engineering covers the creation, design, and analysis of many types of systems, technologies, and materials. This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering, as well as providing a brief introduction to Materials Science, and showing what role materials play for Mechanical Engineers. Students will also receive hands-on experience in applying mechanical engineering principles in several fun experiments throughout the course.

Intro to Ocean Science and Marine Biodiversity: The ocean is home to a fascinating variety of ecosystems, from tide pools along the shore to the depths of the middle Pacific. Dive below the surface to explore marine biodiversity and to learn how people can help protect it. Students will explore a variety of ecosystems, including California’s own kelp forests, where sea lions, dolphins and whales roam. They will examine how human activities are changing these ecosystems and how marine creatures cope with the changes. We will take a look at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to learn how plastics move around our oceans. The class will also look at how the work of marine biologists can help protect the diversity of sea life. Hands-on activities will include experiments, dissection of ocean animals and creation of hand-crafted marine creatures from recycled plastics and trash.