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AAS - 2017

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 2016 and 2017 NITARP teams attended the 2017 January AAS meeting in Dallas, TX. The 2016 class was presenting results and the 2017 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:] This overall experience has taught me be to be diligent and to not procrastinate with my work and homework, it has taught me to thoroughly answer everything and ask for help when I need it.
  • If it were possible to speak to congress (or others) about the impact NITARP has had on myself and my students, I would have to start with it being life changing. For myself the experience has been a needed confirmation that the traditional process of science education in primary and secondary education in ineffective and that there are far better methods. The first and foremost being to have students participate in real authentic research work and learn the needed knowledge in a context of its use and application. I have seen students that would never have considered science a favorite subject excel and push themselves harder because it is ‘real’. I have completely changed my teaching style to reflect this and include real research in all my classes. Student participate, motivations, and enthusiasm have increased across the board. For students I can point to several that have had a complete change in their future prospects and ambitions due to exposure to the NITARP program. Directly or indirectly, they have seen themselves as having a real attainable part of science or technology based career. For some this will push them to be the first in their family to attend college of any kind, for others the first to look at a career outside the trades, for others an encouraging push to continue their efforts and look at what will be. Programs like NITARP provide teachers and students opportunities that really get to the core of STEM education and what STEM should be. They should be supported and encouraged.
  • [student:] A year ago, I would never have dreamed of applying to an Ivy League college. Now, I’ve applied to three. A year ago, I was teetering between art and science. Now, I am looking ahead to a college major and eventual career in astrophysics with the utmost confidence. I am about to embark on a journey into a heavily male-dominated science field with some of the hardest mathematics courses in existence, but I am no longer afraid. I am simply impatient.
  • I had expected that we would learn the material and processes, and then guide the students in a watered down version of the research, but am excited that we all are involved at a higher level in the investigation.
  • [student:] At the beginning of the program I wanted to be a medical examiner. Then throughout the year I learned more about astronomy and the processes that astronomers go through and I just want to do more of that. I still want to be a medical examiner, but astronomy, discovering exoplanets, whether or not they could potentially sustain life, how stars, planetary systems, galaxies are formed, that is what really sparks my curiosity. At the conference I got excited about everything there that I forgot to eat and even got up early. I basically ran on excitement because everything was so fun to learn about that, and I want to always feel like that.

Related Teams

AAS - 2017