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AAS - 2019

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 2018 and 2019 NITARP teams attended the 2019 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2018 class was presenting results and the 2019 class was starting up. We had 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:

2018 Teams:

NITARP Management:

Returning Alumni Teams:

 

Quotes

  • [student:] I think one of the most interesting things I did was having conversations with college students and their posters. The reality of the experience was more than I could have imagined, having the opportunity to have one to one conversations with people making substantial research in the field was more than what I expected.
  • I was never able to pursue any formal instruction in astronomy so it always seemed out of reach and astronomers seemed beyond my scope. This experience opened my eyes and alleviated a lot of the hesitancy I felt in pursuing something I’ve always enjoyed and been passionate about.
  • Watching the kids from different schools interact was one of my favorite parts of this experience that I completely didn’t anticipate. The kids came from totally different worlds and they had a commonality (loving astronomy/ research, and being nerds) but otherwise their lives weren’t necessarily similar. This is a huge benefit of the NITARP program, and although not a stated program goal, I believe it has tremendous value.
  • I have added a whole new dimension of astronomical research and support for my students working on individual projects and competitions that was missing. I’ve also added a plethora of new contacts, both educators and scientists, to my professional learning network. My confidence and ability to teach students more space related curriculum has also increased.
  • [student:] [...] plenary lecture on gravitational wave detection. I expected something completely different from what I learned and realized there. I had no clue how much of an effort over such a long time has gone into it. For some of them, it was their life’s work and they never got to even see the day that we had accomplished only a single detection. That realization is good and all, but the biggest thing that interested me was the way it got me thinking. It is an entirely new way to do astronomy. A new way to look at the universe. Who knows what this could bring? What other ways will we discover? Will I be a part of that? It sprung an endless wave of questions, and settled a completely unrealistic and unfounded fear of mine that science is approaching a ceiling.

Related Teams

AAS - 2019