This laboratory project involves conducting research – that is, contributing to a major science project being conducted by professional scientists – and writing a formal lab report about the work you’ve done. Both tasks are important in science, because once you learn something new and interesting about the universe, you need to let people know about it with clear prose and in a recognizably standard format.
Read the instructions and explanations carefully. Use the Report Template pages at the end of this document to write your report; those are the pages you will turn in.
INSTRUCTIONS
Step 1
(a) Go to the Zooniverse website and learn about the SuperWASP (zooniverse.org/projects/ajnorton/superwasp-variable-stars) project. Your instructor may point you to another Zooniverse project – follow your instructor’s lead on this, please.
(b) Register as a volunteer researcher for the appropriate Zooniverse project.
(c) Look at the Report Template pages to see the kinds of things you will be including in your written report. Then, taking detailed notes on the things you need to include, participate in the project’s research activities for approximately 45-60 minutes. You may work in parallel with other members of the class – be sure to write down their first names, last names, and email addresses
Step 2
Follow the Report Template pages and write a clear, thorough report of your Zooniverse research activity. On the first page, draw a picture in the circle that will help you illustrate the work you’ve done on this project, and write a caption explaining what the figure is showing and other relevant information.
Results:
How long did you conduct this work?
How many pieces of data did you examine?
What were the results you obtained – how many of what kind?
Discussion:
What went well with the work you conducted?
What challenges did you encounter when doing the work?
Do you think your work was successful, believable, dubious, or otherwise? Why?
Conclusion:
Summarize what you did overall in a sentence or two.
Summarize your results in a sentence or two.
Summarize the key points of your discussion in a sentence or two.
Write another sentence or two about what you feel you’ve learned and your overall experience conducting this work, and about what might happen in the future regarding this Zooniverse project.
