Advanced undergraduate student training in astronomy will be carried out by providing students with real research experience using a large modern observatory equipped with research-quality instrumentation. A laboratory and analysis environment will be provided for specific astronomy undergraduate course offerings at the University of Washington. This environment will allow students to acquire scientific data and will provide them with the tools to evaluate this data using current astronomical techniques. The goals of this program are to attract undergraduate students to astronomy and space science fields and to encourage them in developing their investigative talents. The program intends to create this environment and efficiently achieve these goals by taking advantage of many standards from industry as well as implementing standard astronomical data acquisition and analysis tools. Many of these standards exist as the successful products of past and continuing programs supported by the National Science Foundation. The staff and observatory facilities of the University of Washington, which has a broad coverage in scientific, instructional and engineering support, form an ideal platform upon which to base the program.
