• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2016

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 2015 and 2016 NITARP teams attended the 2016 January AAS meeting in Kissimmee, FL. The 2015 class was presenting results and the 2016 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, and a special article on NITARP alumni at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here:

Quotes

  • Programs such as NITARP keep good teachers in the classroom teaching and leading our next generation of scientists. Good science teachers need to be challenged, inspired, and motivated by the science they fell in love with as a student themselves. This happens when they are able to participate and engage in current, active, real experiences such as this. [... ]These programs make good teachers better, improve the quality of education they can deliver, and keep those highly trained, effective people in the classroom doing what they do best.
  • This experience has reinforced to me the importance of learning science by doing science. I have slowly been altering my curricula to provide students with more authentic research experience.
  • NITARP has set a high standard for any professional development experience.
  • [student:] When we do experiments or labs [in school], I look at our data collection and results very different[ly]. It has made the rest of my schooling seem insignificant in retrospect, just because so much of it is copying word for word out of a textbook.
  • I have been in education for 4 decades and this one program has given me more confidence in teaching space science than any college training I ever did.

Related Teams

AAS - 2016