9351858 Bagenal The goal of the project is to enhance science literacy of the 1200 non-science majors who take introductory astronomy courses at CU. a significant improvement to our undergraduate astronomy classes and labs results with the introduction of hands-on computer experiences to augment the present telescopic observing. the observing experience is being enriched from one in which the students look at a few brighter objects through the telescope to one in which they can observe many more much fainter objects with a state of the art CCD camera attached to the telescope and then manipulate the image themselves on a PC, finishing by making a hard copy of their results that they can keep. This is effectively the difference between astronomy 100 years ago and astronomy of today. What is needed is a way for the students to fit their observations into the material that they are learning in the rest of the course: the discovery of the layout of the solar system, the celestial motions, comparisons of different types of celestial objects, the organization of material from molecular clouds to star clusters to galaxies, etc. This is much easier when students have images that they can access on a computer screen or on a hard copy that they can measure. The process of making one's own observation, manipulating the image, measuring such things as stellar magnitudes and positions, and making a print to keep are vital parts of the experience. The project uses two CCD cameras attached to currently-existing 24" and 18" telescopes. Separately, the University of Colorado has been asked to provide 10 personal computers, a SUN Sparc II workstation and a high resolution printer. In addition, the project uses 10 CD- ROM readers to allow the students to access large data bases of planetary and astrophysical images for use during daytime and cloudy nights. ***
