It is particularly important to incorporate hands-on experience into introductory science courses for nonscience majors. Science is often perceived as a collection of facts rather than as an ongoing process of exploration. It is imperative that students have the opportunity to do science. It is difficult to include such firsthand experience in the large lecture classes typical of major universities. However, the problem can be successfully remedied in introductory astronomy courses by developing interactive laboratories for the World Wide Web. Most students can perform the labs in their dorms, the remainder in public computing areas on campus. Students desiring help can go to a computer-equipped tutorial room, staffed by teaching assistants. This project is developing labs based on public domain images, rather than on simulations. Standard Web browser features will be combined with custom programs to turn static images into an interactive environment. Students will be able to blink, magnify and process images, and also make measurements. Students will learn how the spectacular images on the evening news are used by professional scientists to attack critical astronomical questions. They will discover for themselves the strengths and limitations of a variety of telescopes and instruments. While rigorous, the labs will be designed to be fun. Exploration and creative thinking will be strongly encouraged. Results and feedback from a test lab made it clear that Web labs work! The labs will be freely available on-line. Other institutions may either run them remotely, or install them on local Web servers.
