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A New Resource for College Distance Education Astronomy Laboratory Exercises

This article introduces a set of distance education astronomy laboratory exercises for use by college students and instructors and discuss first usage results. This General Astronomy Education Source (GEAS) exercise set contains eight two-week projects designed to guide students through both core content and mathematical applications of general astronomy material. Projects are divided between hands-on activities and computer-aided analyses of modern astronomical data. The suite of online resources includes student and instructor guides, laboratory report templates, learning objectives, video tutorials, plotting tools, and web-based applications that allow students to analyze both images and spectra of astronomical objects. A pilot usage study indicates that distance learners using these materials perform as well or better than a comparison cohort of on-campus students. We are actively seeking collaborators to use these resources in astronomy courses and other educational venues.