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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

  • Seeing the NITARP posters and talking with the NITARP teachers and students made me realize that 1) it is a very intense program and 2) there will be support there to help you.
  • In the past, I had never tried to use raw astronomical data (such as .fits files at various wavelengths) for stars or open clusters because I didn’t know how to analyze it or where to find it. Now that I know both, I have already begun to create and test lesson plans that teach my students how to do such things as create representative color images from IR data, chart SEDs, or even do photometry or more advanced analyses. Now my students can do real science, and hopefully take the next step of getting our own telescope and camera and taking our own photos at chosen wavelengths, reducing the images, and analyzing the results.
  • Through NITARP, teachers and students become ambassadors for authentic science. We can now tell other colleagues and family what real science is like and how important it is to continue the mission of learning more about our universe.
  • For highly motivated teachers and students, NITARP allows us to the experience science in action and be part of the community that we would otherwise not be a part of. Teachers can learn a lot of from scientists, and visa versa. NITARP opens doors for students who would otherwise not have the opportunity to do science research or attend a AAS, particularly due to their finances. NITARP brings science directly into the hands of teachers and students, and demonstrates how science is an active, collaborative, and evolving effort.
  • [student:] I plan to now major in astronomy before going to law school, so that I can do science based law. Someone at the conference suggested this to me when I mentioned that I really love law, and they told me that since space travel is an upcoming field that I should look into that.

Related Teams

AAS - 2015