Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter Education

Thursday, 21 September 2017, 17:40   (HS5)

A research project for students from schools based on variable stars

M. Geffert
Argelander-Institut für Astronomie der Universität Bonn

Young people from schools are interested in getting a little bit of an insight in the life of a scientist. For these students, we have established a lab course based on the determination of light curves of variable stars. Using scans of photographic plates from the Bonner ``Sammlung Historischer Himmelsaufnahmen'' the students learn, how to reduce optical observations. Results of their work were published in the ``BAV-Rundbriefe''. As a byproduct we detected a few new variable stars. In addition, by lessons and work sheets the pupils learn about the importance of variable stars for the determination of distances in astronomy.
An overview of the project and the experience with the ``young scientists'' is given.