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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 did not anticipate to have to deal with a lot of software issues over summer. However, it is the unpredictability of the project that makes it so exciting. I decided to take AP computer science this year and learn to code.
  • 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 remember telling my teacher how jealous I was that others got to do this for a living.
  • One of the most surprising aspects of this process has been to discover just welcoming everyone has been. MOST of the astronomers with whom we interacted have been incredibly gracious and generous
  • [student:] I learned about new resources that I didn’t even know existed. Almost like finding a new continent, vast and ready to be explored. The scientist helped us get familiar with what the buttons did and how to understand what the buttons did, but we were the ones who decided which buttons to press, and we ended up being excellent and ambitious button-pressers.

Related Teams

AAS - 2015