Machine learning in introductory astrophysics laboratory activities

A working knowledge of Artificial Neural Networks is rapidly becoming critical for navigating the modern world. Although the last few years have seen an explosion of the use of these tools in research, and there are many do-it-yourself articles on the web, they have not yet filtered down to wide implementation in introductory courses. I report here on my integration of machine learning activities into a general education course on galaxies and cosmology. I describe four lab activities for image classification, and I reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of using these tools in the context of online instruction during the 2020-21 pandemic academic year.