The Internet, basic nuclear weapons technology and human-caused climate change will be the most prominent examples. Basic Arithmetic is used continually in this course. I can't teach this course without math but I will start with easy problems and slowly increase the difficulty as the course goes on. I will not spend a lot of class time teaching math since you are supposed to know it. I believe that success in the modern workplace requires skills that most american students do not learn in high school or college.
American students are the worst in the industrialized world.
When asked, however, american students feel they have very high academic skills. I have two goals in my teaching. First, to impress upon you that many of you do not know things you should. Second, to fill in as many of these gaps in your education as possible within the format of a college astronomy class. We meet only once a week.