• Course Description
• Laboratory
  • Description
  • Purpose
  • Schedule
  • Sample Lab
• Syllabus

According to Webster, a laboratory is "a room or building for scientific experimentation or research". The laboratory designed for these courses will do just that: give you hands-on experience with the materials used, synthesized and reformed by artists. You will do these exercises in a setting where it is essential to make precise and accurate measurements but, most important of all, to make thorough observations. From all this information - data - you will draw reasonable conclusions and then communicate all that you have done to others by means of a laboratory report. So, the purpose of this lab is to encourage observation, good reasoning skills, an ability for measurement as accurate as available equipment will allow, and communication so that someone else can take your report, repeat what you have done, and come up with the same results.

Labs will be of various types: technique labs designed to give you experience in accurate and precise measurement and handling of materials and equipment; project labs that allow you to pose and answer questions directed toward explaining some observation or phenomenon; and discovery labs where you will uncover a fundamental principle through careful observation and analysis. As you approach each lab exercise, you should ask yourself "what kind of lab is this? What are its objectives and how best can I prepare to achieve them?"