In this course, we will explore the explicit and implicit assumption that learning occurs in museum spaces. Many museums (art, science, etc.) and designed museum-like spaces such as aquariums, sculpture gardens, and historical centers, often collectively called "informal learning institutions," frequently include educational components in their mission statements or goals. Yet, how are these components enacted or realized? Several questions will drive our inquiry: How do we define learning in these settings? How do we measure learning in these settings?

In this course we will discuss the processes by which children come to acquire, recall, and use knowledge. This course will focus on development from infancy to middle childhood. We will examine the emergence and refinement of children's ability to form concepts, recall the past, and extend knowledge to new situations. We will consider methodological challenges and approaches to studying children's abilities, including naturalistic observations, and controlled laboratory studies.

This is the first of a two-course sequence exploring the main theoretical ideas and methods of ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior. In this first semester we explore the functional and evolutionary bases of animal behavior and cognition, including altruism, social behavior, communication, and anti-predator behavior. Students will also learn and put into practice some of the ways that ethologists observe, record and measure behavior outdoors in the natural world.

This class is an introduction to statistical methods that are useful for analyzing data. Topics will include descriptive statistics (summary statistics and graphical methods), and resampling and parameter inference methods for calculating confidence intervals and conducting hypothesis tests. Students will learn how to use the R programming language to explore statistical concepts and to analyze real data. Assignments will consist of weekly problem sets that cover newly introduced topics, and cumulative learning checks that reinforce the topics that have been covered.

This course explores central questions in Plato's moral and political philosophy: What is the good life for human beings? What is virtue? What do specific virtues, such as justice, piety, courage, and wisdom involve? What makes an individual or a community just? What roles do knowledge, emotion, and education play in a virtuous life? What significance does the nature and organization of the psyche have in being virtuous? How is virtue acquired? Is it innate? Can it be taught? Are all humans capable of being virtuous?

In this course, students will play, analyze, and design tabletop games to introduce them to the concepts of game design. We will make good use of the Hampshire Game Library. Assignments will be project-based and are intended to provide both crucial practice of skills and useful additions to a portfolio. The course will include three primary parts. First, students will play and analyze existing games on a weekly basis. Second, students will work in small teams creating initial prototypes highlighting different aspects of game design.

Every society offers public rituals, formal instruction and places of sacred memory whose purpose is to foster a common political identity like nationalism and citizenship. Some of these devices appear natural and timeless; others are obviously invented. Some exist in peaceful periods; others are meant to galvanize people for warfare. One important example of political culture is the presidential election campaign, which will be happening for much of this term, and will be our focus of study.

Philosophy is a method of inquiry that helps us reflect on our own condition, our relationships with each other and the world around us through the careful investigation of concepts such as mind, freedom, morality, and justice. It is also a mode of analysis and criticism that allows us to examine the structure and soundness of our ideas and arguments. This class will introduce you to some of the classic questions in philosophy, as well as the methods of inquiry philosophers use to examine them.

This course is designed to give students a strong introduction to computer programming, with an emphasis on their developing their own projects by the end of the semester. By the end of the course successful students will be able to write programs of moderate difficulty. While Unity is a platform commonly used to develop computer games, students will be able to develop any type of program. As a course that can provide a strong foundation for further computer science courses, this class will expose students to input/output operations, if-else structures, loops, functions, objects, and classes.

The majority of adults are able to read fluently. However, when children learn to read, the process is dependent on a number of skills and requires a great deal of adult guidance. In this course we will discuss the cultural importance of literacy across societies and throughout childhood. We will focus on the development of the complex skill of reading, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and higher-order processes that contribute to decoding and text comprehension.