Observational Astronomy "Across the Curriculum"

随着二十一世纪的临近，天文学正迎来一个非凡的发展时期，它有可能彻底改变我们对物理宇宙的理解。为了让三一大学的学生在这段非凡的时期获得天文学的密集实践经验，我们希望为火星麦克林科学中心获得一套现代望远镜和相关设备，包括一台计算机控制的16英寸施密特-卡塞格林望远镜，六台计算机控制的8英寸施密特-卡塞格林望远镜和两台CCD相机。这台新设备将是我们现有设施的巨大改进，我们将能够实施一个定义明确的双层方法来“跨课程”教授观测天文学——主要是在入门物理实验课程和天文学课程中，但从一年级的研讨会课程到我们最先进的专业实验物理课程——这可能会成为类似本科院校的有用模式。首先，学生们将会发现他们可以通过自己在望远镜目镜下的观察和估计来了解宇宙的多少。其次，他们将获得天体的CCD图像，并进行严格的、定量的、具有研究质量的测量。这次收购的成本相对较低，这将使三一学院的学生用望远镜研究天文学，就像他们用显微镜研究生物学一样普遍。主要受益者将是每年约250名三一学院本科生（占总入学率的10%），其中50%是女性，20%是少数民族学生。

As the twenty-first century approaches, astronomy is enjoying a time of extraordinary advances that hold the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the physical universe. To offer students at Trinity University intensive hands-on experiences in astronomy during this remarkable period, we wish to acquire a set of modern telescopes and related equipment for the Marrs McLean Science Center, including a single computer-controlled, 16" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, six computer-controlled, 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes, and two CCD cameras. This new equipment will be such a dramatic improvement over our present facilities that we will be able to implement a well-defined, two-tier approach to the teaching of observational astronomy "across the curriculum" - primarily in introductory physics laboratory courses and astronomy classes, but ranging from first-year seminar courses to our most advanced experimental physics courses for majors - that may serve as a useful model for similar undergraduate institutions. First, students will discover how much they can learn about the universe by their own human powers of observation and estimation at the eyepiece of a telescope. Second, they will obtain CCD images of celestial objects and make rigorous, quantitative, research-quality measurements. The relatively modest cost of this acquisition would make it as common for Trinity students to do astronomy with telescopes as it already is for them to do biology with microscopes. The principal beneficiaries will be approximately 250 Trinity undergraduates (10% of total enrollment) per year, of whom 50% are women and 20% minoritv students.