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Summer Visit - 2013 - C-CWEL

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 "C-CWEL" team came to visit in August 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 11 students.

Quotes

  • [Three best things about this trip:] Learning a new skill and the great gains in understanding and knowledge about the subject. Watching the students from a wide variety of locations and background come together and form friendships, working relationships, and build support for the project and each other. Getting the opportunity to work on a project such as this with other educators from various disciplines and backgrounds come together to form friendships, working relationships, and build support for the project and each other.
  • [student:] I was surprised that there were no clean, concrete answers. A lot of the time we had to look at information and make decisions and assumptions based on the data and our previous knowledge. No one was going to tell us that a star we were looking at was definitely a YSO. Science in the real world is more subjective and that is a lot different from how we learn in a school science lab. Things are messy and unclear because we're still trying to figure things out. There are anomalies that we can't explain yet, but that's why we keep researching, examining, and inquiring.
  • [student:] By understanding the information that SEDs were providing, I was able to draw conclusions about stars and say whether or not they could possibly be a YSO candidate and that's a pretty cool skill!
  • [This trip] did have a big impact on what my students thought – it was very eye-opening for them to see that astronomers were not stuck in front of a telescope all night, have high computer skills but can also not understand all of what a particular program does or how, and are ‘normal’. Great for them.
  • [student: Advice for others: ] be ready to work! This was an amazing experience, but is not for the faint of heart or those looking for a “summer camp” experience. That being said; do not pass up on this. I had an amazing time, learned a lot, and had fun.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - C-CWEL