IBSE-Type Astronomy Projects Using Real Data

I present three examples of IBSE (Inquiry-Based Science Education) type activities for students and teachers using data and resources from the Faulkes Telescope Project and the National Schools’ Observatory. Both projects have recently celebrated their 15th anniversary and both provide free access via the internet to 2-metre robotic telescopes to educational users throughout the World. Each activity contains supporting material and sample datasets in several aspects of astronomy as well as instructions on how to analyse data. These activities are designed to be ‘teacher-free’, extended projects for students.

They include the study of open clusters via astronomical images and population studies of exoplanets. I also present a Citizen Science project using data from Type Ia supernovae as discovered by the Gaia Alerts consortium. These data allow citizen scientists to develop their own Hubble Plot and begin to understand the link between Type Ia supernovae and the age of the Universe.