Students using digital imagery as tools to scaffold an investigation of light pollution

Students must do science. Both the National Science Education Standards (NSES) and Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) clearly direct teachers to engage their students in scientific investigations. These investigations should be authentic, not contrived. Students should engage in interesting problems and produce meaningful results. Light pollution - a hazy by-product of artificial illumination that washes out star light - is a local and global phenomena that students can investigate using astronomy with sophisticated tools. This study describes how students approach "authentic science inquiry" while they investigate light pollution at their school. Two groups of students measured light pollution with different tools. The control group students used star maps of small areas of sky to record the stars they could see using their eyes alone. The faintest stars they saw are close to the sky's brightness. Treatment group students take digital images of sky and analyze them with freely available image analysis software to determine the sky's brightness. Both groups engage in an authentic problem, but the different tools they use affect their approach toward authentic science inquiry. Control group students show an unexpected score increase for Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) related posttest items. Both treatment and control students approach scientific inquiry; but, analysis of the treatment students' presentations and interviews show that they made subtle additional steps toward authentic inquiry. Students enjoyed using the tools, and thought that their new tool skills helped them organize and explore their data and understand their results.Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Educatio