Learning to do scientific research means learning practice science: to discover patterns in experimental data, to evaluate evidence, to form hypotheses, and to construct and present well-reasoned arguments supporting those hypotheses in scientific debate. It can be difficult to give students the opportunity to practice science in a traditional lecture-centered classroom. There is no guarantee that the student will be able to take knowledge gained in lectures and homework problems and apply it in a research setting.

The HST Astronomy Workbench is a tool for taking undergraduate students beyond the usual classroom activities. Using a web-based interface students are given the opportunity to work with actual scientific data and research tools. Rather than being presented with the full complexity and array of options supplied by research software packages and scientific data, students work with a visual interface that makes it easy to explore the data and make their own discoveries.

To best support the learning process, a good online learning environment must challenge students to accomplish things they could not otherwise manage on their own and at the same time provide them with the assistance and support they need to successfully complete those tasks. In addition to providing easy access to research data and processing the HST Workbench provides a number of tools designed to support the learning process.

The HST Astronomy Workbench consists of nine modules. Each module includes web-based research materials, Java-based tools for working with and viewing astronomical images, and an interactive problem tree component to support the student in problem solving.