Introductory Astronomy Classes Research Articles

Insights from a Survey of Astronomy Instructors in Community and Other Teaching-Oriented Colleges in the United States

Estimates are that approximately 100,000 to 125,000 students take introductory astronomy classes eachyear at colleges and universities that do not grant bachelor’s or higher degrees in physics or astronomy(Fraknoi 2001). This represents roughly 40% to 50% of the total number of students taking introastronomy in the United States.Such nonresearch institutions include community colleges (of which there are approximately 1,200 in theUnited States), smaller liberal arts colleges, and state colleges and universities with only a general sciencedepartment. The ongoing statistical reports from the American Institute of Physics indicate that about 830universities and colleges grant physics degrees (bachelor’s and up), out of the total number of 2,200four-year colleges and universities. The instructors of introductory astronomy at research universities and top liberal arts schools are likely topossess PhDs in astronomy or physics and to have been graduate students and teaching assistants (TAs) atinstitutions like those where they teach. But who teaches Astronomy 101 at the other lower tierinstitutions, which outnumber the AIP list institutions by four to one?To answer this question, we needed more data on these unsung and untallied colleagues.

Astronomical Society Bestows Honors

Last month, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific presented this year’s awards, including one being given for the first time, at its annual meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hans Bethe, professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University, was awarded the Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal, the ASP’s highest honor, “for his fundamental and lifelong contributions to our understanding of how stars produce energy.” Working with other physicists in the 1930s, Bethe calculated the detailed nuclear fusion reactions that power stars such as the Sun. He explained how hydrogen nuclei fuse to form helium nuclei, thus releasing energy in the process. He also explained how more massive stars generate energy through the carbon cycle. Later research helped astronomers to better understand how massive stars explode at the end of their lives as supernovae. For these and other contributions, Bethe received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967. Joseph R. Caruso was recognized with the Las Cumbres Amateur Outreach Award, which is new this year. This award honors outstanding outreach to children and the public by an amateur astronomer. Caruso, a technician at the Oak Ridge Observatory, was acknowledged for making “extraordinary and sustained contributions to astronomy education and outreach in the greater Boston area for more than 25 years.”The ASP presented the Thomas J. Brennan Award, which recognizes exceptional achievement related to the teaching of astronomy at the high-school level, to James G. Hill, founder and director of the French Camp Academy’s Rainwater Observatory and Planetarium in French Camp, Mississippi. In addition to teaching astronomy to high-school students, Hill conducts teacher workshops and introductory astronomy classes for the public and is a solar system educator and ambassador at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He also established and coordinates the Mid-South Star Gaze, an annual star party held at the Rainwater Observatory. Syuichi Nakano received the Amateur Achievement Award in part for his work in computing comet orbits for nearly a quarter of a century. Nakano is an amateur astronomer and liaison in Japan for the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, which is based at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also organizes Japanese amateur astronomers involved in astrometric work on comets and minor planets, and Japanese observers who calculate orbits.The Robert J. Trumpler Award went to Michael A. Pahre (photo unavailable), who is with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The award is given to a recent PhD-degree recipient whose doctoral research is considered unusually important to astronomy. In 1998, Pahre received his PhD from Caltech under the supervision of George Djorgovski. Pahre studied more than 300 galaxies at optical and infrared wavelengths and found that the ages, velocities, and distributions of their stars varied according to the mass of the host galaxies. His observations of more than 100 elliptical galaxies revealed that stars in those galaxies formed when the universe was only 10% of its current age. His findings also suggested that less massive elliptical galaxies evolve slightly faster than more massive ones, implying that the low-mass galaxies formed later, which is in accordance with theoretical predictions. Sandi Preston, director of public information and education with the McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas at Austin, was honored with the Dorothea Klumpke-Roberts Award, which recognizes an individual’s outstanding contributions to public understanding and appreciation of astronomy. Preston is responsible for the observatory’s public information and education programs, including the syndicated radio programs StarDate and Universo and StarDate magazine.The ASP’s Maria and Eric Muhlmann Award, which honors scientists who have obtained important research results based on their development of instruments and techniques at the forefront of technology, went to Keith Taylor, head of instrumentation in the astronomy division at Caltech. When he worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Taylor produced the first Fabry-Perot imaging spectrograph, which enabled astronomers at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in central New South Wales, Australia, to investigate the velocity and distribution of elements in objects such as nebulae and nearby galaxies. He also played a key role in the development of AAT’s low-dispersion survey spectrograph. He developed and managed the design and construction of the Two-Degree Field system (2Df), located at the AAT, which combines a highly complex wide-field corrector for the AAT with 400 robotically positioned optical fibers that feed a pair of multiobject spectrometers. To date, the survey has produced redshifts for more than 200‥000 galaxies. Bethe ROBERT BARKER/CORNELLPPT|High resolution Caruso KAREN CARUSOPPT|High resolution Hill JAMES G. HILLPPT|High resolution Nakano TAKESHI URATAPPT|High resolution Preston DAVID NEUSE/MCDONALD OBSV.PPT|High resolution Taylor KEITH TAYLORPPT|High resolution© 2001 American Institute of Physics.

Quo Vadis astronomy (and physics!) education research?

In the preface of Feynman’s Lectures on Physics, he confesses that “I don’t think I did very well by my students. When I look at the way the majority of students handled the problems on the examinations, I think the system is a failure.” I was flabbergasted when I reread that admission recently, because I had felt the same pessimism about my introductory astronomy classes. I suspect that many readers have explored that frustrated bleakness, too.

A desktop universe for the introductory astronomy laboratory

Project CLEA (Contemporary Laboratory Experiences In Astronomy) has developed nine computer-based laboratory exercises for introductory astronomy classes. The exercises, which make use of real data from professional observatories, enable students to get a sense of the methods astrophysicists use to learn about the distant objects in the universe.

Three textbooks for introductory classes in planetary sciences

Today, teaching an introductory course in planetary sciences, geosciences, or astronomy is challenging. Instructors must ask themselves who is taking the class, non‐science or science majors? Are future majors in planetary sciences, etc. taking the class? What is the background of these students? Have they all had pre‐calculus or do they drop out of the class in droves as soon as scientific notation is used in class or in a homework assignment? If they are non‐science majors (or even future scientists) is it assumed that they know what causes the phases of the Moon or the seasons? These are all important questions to consider before choosing a textbook. Finally, if the class is purely a class on the Solar System, are the students required or assumed to have had an introductory astronomy class? Add individual teaching styles and preferences to the equation and choosing a textbook can be difficult at best.

Using role-playing exercises to teach astronomy

I’d like to share a rather cavalier, but enormously enjoyable technique I’ve been using to teach introductory astronomy classes for nonscience majors. Rather than preparing a conventional lecture on some area of astronomy, I divide my class into groups that compete among themselves to be the first to understand a given aspect of astronomy, using clues that I supply.