Some of these learning goals are part of Physical Systems, and some are not. We've marked the specific goals below to indicate which are a focus in PS.

You should participate in a variety of disciplines during your college years to really get a liberal arts education.  Try to take a program in the next year or two that addresses some of the learning goals that we do not.  For example, we focus more on science than on art, so you should take something in the expressive arts while you are at Evergreen, or learn another language.
 
 

• A. Define and assume responsibility for your own work
• B. Participate collaboratively and responsibly in a diverse society
• C. Communicate creatively and effectively
• D. Demonstrate independent, critical thinking
• E. Apply qualitative and quantitative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines, including the Arts and Sciences 
• F. Demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning 

• Articulate and investigate your questions. (+)
• Develop and continually assess an evolving academic plan based on development of your own questions and goals. (=)
• Articulate and explain your choice of academic experiences and integrate educational experiences from year to year as related to the evolution of your own questions and goals. (=)
• Articulate contexts of various disciplines as related to your own questions. (+)
• Articulate and understand work within varying contexts and across significant differences. (+)
• Take responsibility for your own work in a collaborative context. (+)
• Work in your chosen medium to thoughtfully and competently convey your learning. (+)
• Engage with others in community-based project work.(-)
• Understand the ethical use of information. (+)
• Identify the implications of your choice to act or not act in the world. (=)
• Articulate and demonstrate the necessity of working with others to exercise power and effect change. (+)

• Articulate the partiality of your own assumptions and experiences. (=)
• Articulate the assumptions and experiences of people different from yourself and know how to learn from culturally diverse perspectives. (-)
• Compare historical and cultural perspectives with your own. (=)
• Work in contexts where ambiguity and conflict are present, and work responsibly and efficiently on collaborative projects. (+)
• Ask good questions, elicit the ideas of colleagues, and listen actively. (+)
• Take responsibility for your own work in a collaborative context. (+)
• Paraphrase and articulate the potential legitimacy of contradictory interpretations of actions/events. (+)
• Represent experiences and issues you've studied using words, images, or other media to reflect the multi-faceted nature of collective experience. (=)
• Articulate the ways to implicate and partially define your engagement with others. (-)
• Demonstrate the ability to engage, respect and negotiate competing claims from multiple communities and voices. (+)
• Demonstrate the ability to work with others to analyze a problem or create a project, plan and implement a strategy, and evaluate the results. (+)
• Demonstrate the ability to assume varying group process roles. (+)

C. Communicate creatively and effectively. 

• Design and implement written and oral presentations appropriate to your audiences. (+)
• Communicate effectively in a variety of forms to a variety of audiences. (+)
• Ask good questions, elicit the ideas of colleagues, and listen actively, especially when you disagree with what you are hearing. (+)
• Analyze oral presentations and arguments. (=)
• Construct a theme, synthesize and build upon an argument. (+)
• Interpret and create symbolic representations of both concrete facts and more abstract relations. (+)
• Accurately paraphrase others' assertions. (=)
• Describe emotional tone of argument to identify what is unsaid, but relevant. (-)
• Formulate nuanced questions and listen actively to responses. (=)
• Create persuasive, logical arguments in written form. (+)
• Create effective representations of emotional, aesthetic, and social realities through the use of written language. (-)
• Create expressive representations of reality through the use of images, music, performance, and creative writing. (-)

D. Demonstrate independent, critical thinking. 

• Identify an author's point of view and thesis, and the cultural context in which the work was created. (+)
• Analyze and evaluate arguments and the adequacy of evidence and supportive arguments. (+)
• Analyze oral presentations and arguments. (+)
• Create written work or works of art. (+)
• Interpret written works and works in performance, visual, and media arts. (=)
• Make careful observations of the natural world and interpret them. (+)
• Take more than one position on a particular issue and defend each position reasonably and respectfully. (=)
• Suspend disbelief enough to grasp another person's points of view by careful, active reading. (+)
• Construct a theme, synthesize and build upon an argument. (+)
• Demonstrate the ability to assume varying group process roles. (+)
• Interpret and create symbolic representations of both concrete facts and more abstract relations.(+)
• Efficiently make estimates and critically evaluate their limits of validity. (+)
• Recognize the potential legitimacy of contradictory interpretations of actions and events. (=)

E. Apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines. 

• Formulate good questions based on need for information; identify potential sources of information; and develop and apply successful search strategies to access varied sources of information, including computer-based technologies. (+)
• Select appropriate resources to investigate those questions and evaluate the quality and accuracy of information and resources. (+)
• Articulate relevant theoretical material, historically and conceptually. (+)
• Efficiently make estimates and critically evaluate their limits of validity. (+)
• Read, analyze, interpret, use, and create information. (+)
• Interpret and create symbolic representations of both concrete facts and more abstract relations. (+)
• Integrate information into existing knowledge, use it in problem solving, and cite and document it accurately. (+)
• Apply information to practical and theoretical problems. (+)
• Synthesize diverse approaches and information to generate new perspectives and inquiries. (=)
• Understand the ethical use of information. (+)
• Articulate contexts of varying disciplines as they relate to your own questions. (=)

F. As a culmination of your education, demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning. 

• Demonstrate intellectual depth by participating in an advanced project. (+)
• Appreciate and apply creativity, imagination, and analytic and synthetic reasoning, as appropriate. (+)
• Demonstrate intellectual breadth by studying, in some depth, in more than one area of the curriculum. (+)
• Write an essay on the personal and social significance of your learning. (=)
• Articulate and understand work within varying contexts and across significant differences. (=)
• Synthesize diverse approaches and information to generate new perspectives and inquiries. (+)

Understand the ethical use of information. (+)