RTSRE Proceedings

Astronomy, Technology, and the Scientific Method: Reflections on the Astronomy Research Seminar at Stanford Online High School, Spring 2018

Kalée Tock — 2019-12-01

This article presents lessons learned and reflections on the scientific process from teaching two sections of the Astronomy Research Seminar at Stanford Online High School in Spring of 2018.

A Glass Ceiling in AER?: A preliminary glimpse at the distribution of authors by gender in the iSTAR (istardb.org) database

Saeed Salimpour — 2019-12-01

In this article, we briefly summarise what information we have available about the distribution of authors by gender of articles contained within the international STudies of Astronomy education Research database (istardb.org). These articles represent a nearly, but not totally, complete population sample of published Astronomy Education Research. There are some indications, although lacking statistical power to decide if it is a true effect, that the top ten authors, first authors and authors by h-index have seen a slight increase in the proportion of women in the last 5 years compared to the all-time levels. Women have also submitted the majority of AER dissertations in the last 5 (~56%) and 10 (~52%) years compared to all time (~41%).

Rationale for a New Journal: the Astronomy Theory, Observations and Methods (ATOM) Journal

Michael T. Fitzgerald — 2019-12-01

In this article, the rationale behind the creation of a new journal, Astronomy Theory, Observations and Methods (ATOM) journal, currently hosted at rtsre.org is provided. It aims to fill a niche in the community for papers on any general topic in astronomy that may not find their place in top tier astronomical journals. The article outlines the thinking behind why there is a gap to be filled with regards to current scholarly metrics and the nature of other journals of similar scope and impact. The journal aims to be accessible to new and novice scientific authors, as well as those more established, through accessible developmental peer review and an explicit aim to avoid using publication metrics as a barrier to publication selection. The scope, which accepts more broader articles than most, of the journal and considerations on behalf of a potential author are also outlined.

Three Decades of Distance Education Astronomy at Athabasca University

Martin Connors — 2019-12-01

The first Astronomy course at Athabasca University was offered in 1989 as a correspondence course, using innovative DOS software on the remote students’ home computers. A Sciencestream course, it simulated astronomy research and offered laboratory credit at freshman level. The success of this course led to a qualitative astronomy course being offered in the early 1990s, based on a commercially-available course package (including videos) supplemented by practical activities. It also included an essay in which students critique aspects of astronomy in popular culture, based on what they learned in the course. Both courses were popular, but enrollment has plateaued. For more senior students, we developed the possibility to do research projects, which also met a need for senior credit for program students in the B.Sc. We now offer two complementary courses in planetary science, one from an astronomy/physics perspective, and one focusing on planetary geology. Although distance education has come to be more accepted in recent times, and moved to the internet, transitioning our materials to being fully web courses has been challenging. Recent success in transitioning Physics online courses to use of open textbooks suggests that this may be possible in Astronomy as well. We also hope to integrate our online research facilities more into education.

Astronomy Research Seminar Expansion and Building a Community-of-Practice

Rachel Freed — 2019-12-01

The astronomy research seminar has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past several years and is now offered in almost a dozen institutions from middle schools up through community college and undergraduate courses in four-year universities. In its spread it has gone through diversification in how it is taught to fit the needs of the new instructors, students and institutions, whether it’s as a three-day intensive workshop, eight-week fully online seminar or semester-long hybrid course. An important part of the growth, success and sustainability of an astronomy research seminar is having student teams working within a Communityof- Practice. Key to this, is building up that Community-of-Practice and helping students understand that they are important partners within the community. This paper presents brief descriptions of many of the seminar offshoot programs in the context of building a Community around student astronomical research.

Recent Evolution and Status of Online Homework Systems for Teaching Introductory Astronomy

Timothy F. Slater — 2019-12-01

Internet-delivered, automatically-graded, online homework systems are becoming ever easier for college science teaching faculty to adopt and integrate into existing learning management systems. In this sense, online homework systems have great potential to extend the amount of time on task students allocate to learning astronomy without overburdening already overextended, busy professors. At the same time, the systematic education research surrounding the use of online homework systems is less conclusive, with both benefits and disadvantages being reported in the literature. Moreover, some student advocates lament the financial burden to students and the negative optics about instructors’ commitments to teaching. In the end, an ASTRO101 professor’s decisions about whether or not to adopt online homework systems are complex and insufficiently supported by compelling education research data and by and large depend heavily on both a professor’s teaching philosophy and the academic context in which the students are learning.

Astronomy Laboratory Experiences in the FullDome Digistar 5 Planetarium Environment

Shaukat Goderya — 2019-12-01

College level astronomy is typically offered as a laboratory-based introductory level course for non-science majors. In comparison to a typical physics laboratory where there is a large choice of equipment available for physics experiments, there is only a limited number of setups that can be used for nighttime astronomy activities. Furthermore, many astronomy events require time to collect data and this can be challenging in three-hour lab periods. Most instructors use a mix of different mediums like computer software, internet, and workbook style labs mixed with one or two optics experiment and a few stargazing activities with telescopes. These are all good methods to engage students in astronomy learning; however it cannot compare well with the actual process of collecting data by observing the night sky and analyzing that data. Certainly, it is possible to develop one or two such activities but for a variety of reasons it is not practical for a large class environment setting. Fulldome planetariums simulate the night sky and offer the ability to collect data on many astronomical events in a laboratory setting. Unfortunately, astronomy curriculum material that make use of fulldome technology in teaching and laboratory experiences in astronomy is largely lacking. The goal of this talk is to show that fulldome planetarium can be used as a medium for college-level astronomy courses. Several examples will be shown in which students collect and analyze astronomical data as well as activities that are planned for the future.

Scanning the Auroral Skies: The Athabasca University Robotic Telescope

Ian Schofield — 2019-12-01

The Athabasca University Robotic Telescope (AURT) is a moderate aperture (0.36 m) networked robotic telescope that supports teaching and research at Athabasca University, a pioneering and prominent distance learning university in Canada. This paper reviews the establishment and implementation of a robotic, Internet-based astronomical observatory whose development parallels and complements Athabasca University’s auroral observatory. We discuss the unique features and challenges of the northern observing environment, give examples of teaching and research activities underway at AURT, and discuss an investigation into dark sky conditions over the AURT site.

New Transit Measurements of WASP 43b and HD 189733b

Richard P. Olenick — 2019-12-01

Known exoplanets not only provide excellent targets for students who are learning to acquire data with remote observatories and to process the data but also fulfill a scientific need for repeated measurements to determine the stability of known parameters. We present recent measurements taken by undergraduate students with a remotely accessed telescope at the Dark Skies Observatory Collaborative in West Texas on two well-studied exoplanets. WASP 43b has a published orbital period of 0.81347753 days and its host K7V star has a visual magnitude of 12.4. HD 189733b has a published orbital period of 2.21857312 days around its K1V star of visual magnitude 7.67. Both planets orbit within the corona of their host stars and, as such, appear to experience changes in their orbital periods, transit timings, and other parameters. We examined the historical trends, combined them with our measurements in the mid-transit timings for the stars, and determined there are significant changes. Astronomers– from college students to professionals–need this continued monitoring in order to keep system models up to date.

Capturing the Cosmos: Teaching Astronomy (and more) through Astrophotography in Middle School

Saeed Salimpour — 2019-12-01

The Universe provides a canvas for exploration, it sets the stage waiting to be captured and explored by imagination and science. Its capacity to provide innate aesthetically pleasing visuals and the mysteries they hold, piques the curiosity of everyone. This paper provides an overview and results from an astronomy elective as implemented in a middle school classroom over the course of 11 weeks, at a non-governmental school in regional Victoria, Australia. Students who previously had no exposure to astronomy or image processing used the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) network of robotic remote telescopes to capture images of astronomical objects and processed them to create colour images. The preliminary Learning Progression (LP) focusing on inquiry skills and the results of the student project are highlighted.

Evaluation of the Astronomy Research Seminar

Rachel Freed — 2019-12-01

The need for a scientifically literate populace is clear now more than ever in recent human history as evidenced by global climate change and current political discourse and opining around it. Several decades of research and practice in science education still appear to leave much to be desired in terms of student understanding about the nature of science, scientific research and communication, and the need for scientific literacy. While there are potentially many avenues for students to pursue science in education and career paths, the Astronomy Research Seminar seems to have tapped into an intrinsic value in participating within and contributing to a Community-of-Practice as a way of learning. Based on an initial evaluation of students’ experience and educational and career choices, the seminar has a meaningful impact on students. Furthermore, for many individuals it transforms their identities as scientists or at least budding-scientists and gives them a glimpse into the idea that they can participate in the scientific endeavor. As has been shown recently (Freed 2019) the seminar model is scalable as evidenced by the numerous variations that have developed over the past several years. This paper provides a deeper look into how students think and feel about their research experience in the seminar.

The Double STARS Research Seminar: An analysis of its effects and methodologies

Alexander Beltzer-Sweeney — 2019-12-01

The Double STARS (STEM Through Astronomy Research for Students) seminar is a hybrid online/in-person research experience aiming to encourage critical thinking and data analysis through observational astronomy via robotic telescopes. Presented here is a program analysis from the perspective of the authors, two undergraduate students who have previously participated in the program, who are now mentoring students in both California and New Mexico. Data collected from 57 past students, both online and in-person, are presented in order to give a broader understanding of the successes and challenges the program has faced. This paper provides the education community with valuable knowledge of how similar programs can be adapted to best suit the needs of students as well as the ways in which programs such as these may help students in the areas of professional development, research, and overall scientific understanding.

Google CoLaboratory as a Platform for Python Coding with Students

Kalée Tock — 2019-12-01

Google CoLaboratory (Google CoLab) is a powerful collaborative tool for coding in Python with students. This work presents a project to calculate the period of an eclipsing binary system that was completed by Stanford Online High School students using Google CoLaboratory. The Las Cumbres Observatory 0.4m telescopes were used to obtain images, and photometry from the Our Solar Siblings pipeline was imported into Google CoLaboratory using JSON (Javascript Object Notation) for analysis in Python. Some additional classroom applications of Google CoLaboratory are highlighted, such as converting between astronomical coordinate systems.

Factors Contributing to Attitudinal Gains in Introductory Astronomy Courses

Adam S. Trotter — 2019-12-01

Most students do not enroll in introductory astronomy as part of their major; For many, it is the last science course they will ever take. Thus, it has great potential to shape students’ attitudes toward STEM fields for the rest of their life. We therefore argue that it is less important, when assessing the effectiveness of introductory astronomy courses, to explore traditional curricular learning gains than to explore the effects that various course components have on this attitude. We describe the results of our analysis of end-of-semester surveys returned by a total of 749 students in 2014-2015, at 10 institutions that employed at least part of the introductory astronomy lecture and lab curriculum we first implemented at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. Surveys were designed to measure each student’s attitude, and to probe the correlation of attitude with their utilization of, and satisfaction with, various course components, along with other measures of their academic background and their self-assessed performance in the course. We find that students’ attitudes are significantly positively correlated with the grade they expect to receive, and with their rating of the course’s overall effectiveness. To a lesser degree, we find that students’ attitudes are positively correlated with their mathematical background, with whether they intend to major or pursue a career in STEM, and with their rating of the effectiveness of the instructor. We find that students’ attitudes are negatively correlated with the amount of work they perceived the course to involve, and, surprisingly, with the size and reputation of their home institution. We also find that, for the subsets of students who were exposed to them, students’ attitudes are positively correlated with their perception of the helpfulness of the lecture component of the course, and of telescope-based labs that utilized UNC-CH’s Skynet Robotic Telescope Network.