How authentic research-based assignments in 100-level astrobiology classes at community colleges affects student understanding of life in the universe

Abstract: At LaGuardia Community College, thousands of students have taken a Life in the Universe class as a fulfillment of science general education requirements. While SETI and astrobiology more broadly have long been acknowledged as powerful motivational tools for encouraging student engagement in science classes, only limited work has been done to identify the manner and means by which students taking these classes conceptualize the topics and change or do not change their understanding of the foundational questions of whether life or intelligence exists beyond the Earth and, if so, how it might be manifest. We show some examples of how student conceive of and imagine how (intelligent) life outside the Earth may be discovered, and what influences connection to data and the scientific framework used in the class may have had on their conceptualizations.