What is Learned by Undergraduates in Dispersed Remote Telescope Observing Teams: Preliminary Results

Abstract:

Across the Earth and space sciences, undergraduate research experiences provide mechanisms for enculturating students into the community of scientific research and sharpening research skills. These experiences typically fall into two categories in astronomy and space science: either highly competitive national experiences—generally short term, such as summer-- or localized experiences run by local faculty with access to institutional observing facilities—generally long term, extending from a semester to several years in duration. In leveraging opportunities provided by the remotely controlled Las Cumbres Observatory, we are exploring a third option—25 geographically distributed research teams of a mentoring faculty member and 3-to-4 undergraduate teams collaboratively measuring the distance to a nearby galaxy. As a first step to understanding potential impacts, we find limited changes to student perceptions of science identity, scientific community values and changes of their understanding of scientific inquiry, despite completing an entire inquiry cycle, including publishing of a formal scientific paper.