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Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The "They Might Be Giants" team came to visit in August 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 6 students.

Quotes

  • I will say that I think part of every good astronomy (or any science) research project is asking a question you don't know the answer to, and I hope that as a teacher I can bring that back to my class. Along with asking questions, both collaboration and organization are important parts of working together for science.
  • But for me as a teacher, I am going to use this data base and some of what we did to do a better job of teaching stellar evolution ... especially as it relates to hydrogen core, hydrogen shell, and helium core burners. We will try to do some similar things in class that we did this summer ... how to use a light curve, how to use a periodogram to find periods, etc. This will help bring some practicality to astronomical theory.
  • [student:] [Astronomers] were much more personable and helpful than I imagined they might be. I also never before thought about how close astronomy and astrophysics were related.
  • [The most important thing I learned was that] Data on archival websites may be derived in different ways and therefore may be contradictory. It is important to compare, but also to know how the numbers were obtained to determine which are more relevant to your needs.
  • I think most people carry misconceptions of scientists as a whole... but I also think most people don't even personally know an astronomer or scientist. The fact that I know and have worked with scientists is going to be helpful to share with students.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants