Observational Astronomy "Across the Curriculum" at
Trinity U.
(a proposal funded by the National Science Foundation's
Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement Program,
July 1998 - September 2000)
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In the early twenty-first century, astronomy is enjoying a time of extraordinary
advances that hold the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the physical
universe. To offer students at Trinity University intensive hands-on experiences in
astronomy during this remarkable period, we have acquired a set of modern telescopes
and related equipment for the Marrs McLean Science Center, including a single computer-
controlled, 16" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, six computer-controlled, 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain
telescopes, and two CCD cameras.
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This new equipment is such a dramatic improvement over our previous facilities that we have been able to implement a well-defined, two-tier approach to the teaching of observational
astronomy "across the curriculum" - primarily in introductory physics laboratory courses
and astronomy classes, but ranging from first-year seminar courses to our most advanced
experimental physics courses for majors - that may serve as a useful model for similar
undergraduate institutions.
First, students discover how much they can learn about the universe by their own human
powers of observation and estimation at the eyepiece of a telescope.
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Second, they obtain CCD images of celestial objects and make rigorous, quantitative,
research-quality measurements.
The relatively modest cost of this acquisition makes it as common for Trinity students
to do astronomy with telescopes as it already is for them to do biology with microscopes. The
principal beneficiaries are approximately 250 Trinity undergraduates (>10% of total
enrollment) per year, of whom approximately 50% are women and approximately 20% minority
students. |
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