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Summer Visit - 2014 - SIRXS

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 SIRXS team came to visit in July 2014. The core team educators attended, plus 11 students.

 

Quotes

  • [student:] Usually, in class, teachers have all the answers and just tell you, but with this project, the teachers didn’t always have the answers. Sometimes, students explained things to the teachers. It was interesting to work with teachers as equals.
  • One happy surprise was the element of serendipity in moving the project forward. I did not anticipate that one of the two post-docs who were sitting in to observe (for education, not science) would suggest that we use software that would change the way we managed our data.
  • We also came across some problems in our data base as we worked and had to stop, problem solve, and keep going. And collaborating. Without that piece, this project would be almost impossible to do alone.
  • [student:] I was somewhat surprised that the catalogue was publicly archived. I think it is an amazing opportunity for non-astronomers to do some "real" science, or simply learn new skills.
  • One of the powerful elements to our successes was collaboration. While I have experienced this before and anticipated that it would be a key component of our work, I loved discovering that our students were often in the lead, helping the teachers and astronomers to solve problems.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2014 - SIRXS