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AAS - 2015

The Winter American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting is the largest meeting of professional astronomers in the world. NITARP educators attend an AAS first to meet their team, then they go home and work remotely for much of the year, and then attend an AAS to present their results.  At any given AAS, then, we could have two NITARP classes attending - those finishing up, and those getting started. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The 2014 and 2015 NITARP teams attended the 2015 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2014 class was presenting results and the 2015 class was starting up. We had many alumni raise money to come back as well. We sent about 50 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here:

Quotes

  • [student:] I’ve always planned to study some sort of science, though I’ve never been sure what kind. This experience has made me more comfortable with the idea of pursuing a field like astronomy, which I hope to major in and potentially even go into as a career. But I also became aware that there are many other fields, from engineering to computer science, that intersect with astronomy and it made me interested in pursuing those in the future as well.
  • A program like this keeps me connected with my passion and provides the opportunity to share it with students who might someday pursue STEM careers and make amazing contributions.
  • [student:] I realized the importance of group collaboration. You can never really do all of this alone, especially in scientific research.
  • No district-led professional development can compare.
  • My students told me, as we were debriefing on Thursday before boarding the plane home, that on the first day of the conference they felt a bit intimidated to be among so many highly intelligent people. But they soon discovered that astronomers are real people – they are passionate, friendly, and happy to talk about their work. By the second day they had no fear of approaching anyone and talking about their work – even my 8th grade student was actively talking to people at their posters and booths by the last day, so much so we had a hard time pulling her away to take a picture.

Related Teams

AAS - 2015