deletions | additions       diff --git a/Lab assignments.tex b/Lab assignments.tex  index 6226504..30842d7 100644  --- a/Lab assignments.tex  +++ b/Lab assignments.tex 
...
The lab assignments in AST 208 have been completely rewritten over the past two years, and development is ongoing. The lab now seeks to communicate learning goals through authentic research experiences, using the tools astronomers regularly use (e.g., Python, DS9, observatory archives). A central goal of the lab is to foster independence in our students, in both defining and tackling problems. For this reason, labs are often perceived as open-ended and loosely defined, and instructors direct students towards google rather than handing out cleanly-defined documents containing the answer. Another goal of the lab is to communicate what astronomy is like as a career, and how the science of astronomy is accomplished. We integrate discussion of current research questions and the day-to-day tasks astronomers undertake into the lab activities, and devote a lab session to a Q\&A about graduate school and career paths.   Here are some examples of current AST 208 labs (see also Fig.\ \ref{fig:hst}):\\  \textbf{The Hyades Star Cluster:} Students receive photometry and parallax measurements from the \emph{Hipparcos} satellite  for stars in the Hyades cluster, and must determine the distance, age, and metallicity of the cluster through isochrone fitting. This lab serves as an introduction to the Python programming language, and provides experience in manipulating arrays and making plots. It also illustrates how models and observations can be used together to determine fundamental astrophysical properties. \textbf{Understanding and Reducing CCD Images:} Detectors are as important to data quality as telescopes themselves, and students learn about the most common detector in astronomy, the charge coupled devices (CCD), by making ``sythetic images" with an ice cube tray (the CCD) and confetti (the electrons; Fig.\ \ref{fig:ice}). Students then move on to manipulating real CCD images obtained at the Campus Observatory, correcting them for common imperfections via bias, dark, and flatfield correction, and then combining images to make aesthetically-pleasing 3-color images of interesting sources.