Open Your Eyes to the Skies: An Innovative and Interdisciplinary Astronomy/Astrochemistry Teaching Laboratory

天文学（11）这个项目是在历史悠久的伊利诺伊大学天文台大楼（国家历史地标）创建一个多用途教学实验室，允许学生使用12英寸的布拉希尔折射望远镜（1896年完成）和一套较小的望远镜，以及光谱仪，实验室实验和基于计算机的活动，如数据分析。此外，该项目正在开发一套本科生课程，以新的方式利用天文台，以实践和积极的学习方法更好地促进科学教育。其中两门课程针对非天文学专业的学生，他们参加天文学入门课程，以满足他们的定量推理大学要求。第三门课程针对天文学专业的学生，他们很少接触到真实的观察和实验。第四门课程是国家在新兴的天体化学跨学科领域的第一门实验室课程。智力优势：这项工作涉及创建天文学和天体化学学科的创新教学实验室，以及为非天文学专业，天文学专业和化学专业开发新课程。PI正在为这些课程创造新的学习材料和教学策略，以实验室“手册”的形式，故意模糊到足以迫使学生探索手头的科学问题并发展自己的实验技术。该项目还在成功的天文学实验室课程的基础上实施教育创新（例如，哈佛和加州大学伯克利分校），但也推进了他们的成就与强大的天文光谱学和天体化学。更广泛的影响：天文学/天体化学教学实验室的建立和相关课程的开发利用了天文台和学生的自然奇观提供的机会，以新的方式打开他们的眼睛天空。这项工作的更广泛影响将是提高科学素养的人口（由于非专业人员接触科学方法），增加天文学专业的人口，使其性别更加平衡，并使化学和天文学方面受过更好教育的科学家进入劳动力队伍。该项目也可以使美国其他天文部门受益。

Astronomy (11) This project is creating a multi-use teaching laboratory in the historic University of Illinois Observatory building (a National Historic Landmark) that allows students to use the 12 inch Brashear refracting telescope (completed in 1896) and a suite of smaller telescopes together with spectrographs, laboratory experiments, and computer-based activities such as data analysis. In addition, the project is developing an ensemble of undergraduate courses that utilize the Observatory in a new way to better promote science education with a hands-on, active learning approach. Two of these courses target non-astronomy majors who take the introductory astronomy courses to satisfy their quantitative reasoning university requirement. A third course targets astronomy majors, who otherwise get very little exposure to real observing and experimentation. The fourth course is the nation's first laboratory course in the emerging interdisciplinary field of astrochemistry. Intellectual Merit: The work involves the creation of an innovative teaching laboratory in the disciplines of astronomy and astrochemistry, as well as the development of new courses for non-astronomy majors, astronomy majors, and chemistry majors. The PIs are creating new learning materials and teaching strategies in the form of the laboratory "manuals" for these courses, which are deliberately vague enough to force the students to explore the scientific questions at hand and to develop their own experimental techniques. The project is also implementing educational innovations based on successful astronomy laboratory courses (e.g., Harvard and UC Berkeley), but also advancing their achievements with the powerful addition of astronomical spectroscopy and astrochemistry. Broader Impact: The creation of an astronomy/astrochemistry teaching laboratory, and the development of the associated courses, takes advantage of the opportunity presented by the Observatory and students' natural wonder, to open up their eyes to the skies in a new way. The broader impact of this work will be a more scientifically literate population (resulting from non-majors' exposure to the scientific method), a larger and more gender-balanced population of astronomy majors, and better-educated scientists in chemistry and astronomy entering the workforce. The project can also benefit other U.S. astronomy departments.