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Summer Visit - 2012 - ColdSpotz

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The Cold Spotz team came to visit in June 2012. The core team educators plus 8 students attended.

Quotes

  • I think the most important thing I learned on this trip is that there are so many ways to get involved in astronomy and science.
  • I think "real astronomy" is not simply about looking up at the sky and discovering new things, but having a passion for it and educating the public about what's really going on.
  • The best thing about this trip was watching the confidence level rise in each participant. [..] By the end of the week, my two students felt so much more confident in their Excel abilities that they were helping others write formulas to make calculations easier. It was also exhilarating to witness [the other] teachers gain faith in their understanding of the project, as well.
  • I was a little nervous initially about working with people I had never met before, but it turned out to be so much better than I could have expected.
  • This experience completely changed my views on astronomy. The biggest shock for me was when I found out that astronomer don't actually sit in an observatory and look out a telescope all day. It's gotten more complex then that now, but that image of a person in a white lab coat looking through a huge telescope was the image that used to pop into my head when I hear the word astronomy.

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Summer Visit - 2012 - ColdSpotz