Robert Carlton

carltonr@mtsu.edu

Robert Carlton

Physics and Astronomy

Discipline specific equipment

WPS 212

N/A

N/A

The Department of Physics and Astronomy teaches introductory astronomy to about 650 students every year. This course covers topics ranging from planets, asteroids, and stars up to galaxies, quasars, and cosmology and fulfills a General Education requirement for the natural sciences. Critical to this study is the hands-on experience provided by the various laboratory exercises conducted by the students. One unit addressed in the laboratory that has yet to become fully hands-on is the study of the Sun. In this exercise students resort to images obtained from books or the Internet. This approach is inconsistent with the teaching philosophy of our department where we believe that students need to learn proper laboratory techniques in addition to learning scientific principles. We propose installing a specialized solar telescope into the laboratory room whereby students will be able to study the Sun directly in a safe manner and to use live images when performing the various calculations that are critical to understanding the dynamics of the closest star to the Earth. This facility would also be used by physics majors working on research projects in our research courses in all laboratories in astronomy. If funding is limited, we could pull out the spectrometer for another phase or funding source.