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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

  • [student:] Yes, this did change my thoughts about astronomers! I never expected astronomers to be lively, funny, and talkative, while maintaining a mind of a genius!
  • 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.
  • I think my kids were surprised at how much fun [our astronomers] were. I think they had a stereotype of astronomer that definitely didn't match reality! :)
  • [student:] The best thing about the trip was being able to learn from and work along side real astronomers.
  • [student:] Astronomers (and scientists in general) often don't find the results they want. In fact, we found almost no correlation between most of the elements we used (the star's amplitude, radius, surface gravity, etc). But finding no correlation is just as important as finding a correlation because it opens a window to new questions, such as -- why was there no correlation?

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Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants