What's Educational about Online Telescopes?: Evaluating 10 Years of MicroObservatory.
Abstract
The MicroObservatory network of five online telescopes has been used by middle and high school students, their teachers, and the public in all 50 states to carry out a wide variety of inquiry-driven projects. From an analysis of 475 student projects and other data, we report substantial gains in students’ conceptual understanding of what telescopes do, of core concepts in astronomy and physical science, of inquiry skills, and of how mathematics can be used to model nature. Our summary of lessons learned should be helpful to anyone involved in the quest to provide access to powerful scientific instruments over the Internet.
Date
01/01/2006
Citation
Gould, R., Dussault, M., & Sadler, P. (2006). What’s Educational about Online Telescopes?: Evaluating 10 Years of MicroObservatory. Astronomy Education Review, 5(2), 127–145. https://doi.org/10.3847/AER2006022