• NASA
  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2023 - SCHARP

The summer visit to Caltech is 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 SCHARP team came to visit in June 2023. The 5 core team educators attended, plus 10 students.

Quotes

  • My advice for teachers is to be willing to take the risk of learning side-by-side with your students. Likely every teacher is reluctant to do this, but if you can get over the initial anxiety, the rewards are great for yourself, your students, and even your school’s culture.
  • Now I think everyone can do astronomy. In the past, I thought it was for an elite group of people, and this experience showed me that even people with no astronomy background are capable of conducting authentic research.
  • [student:] The most surprising thing that I learned was how much more there is to astronomy than meets the eye. You are not just looking at stars through a telescope. You are graphing data, and doing math to better understand what you are looking at.
  • The best thing about the trip was collaborating with my group. Everyone was so willing to help each other and work toward a common goal. You don’t always see that in many work environments.
  • Qualities that are important to be an astronomer are perseverance and a willingness to learn from mistakes. Astronomers also have to be effective communicators in order to discuss their findings.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2023 - SCHARP