• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2024

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 2023 and 2024 NITARP teams attended the 2024 January AAS meeting in New Orleans, LA. The 2023 class was presenting results and the 2024 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 press release on NITARP from the AAS, and the special online article about NITARP at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here. (In addition to the iPoster sessions as listed here, the physical versions of the 2023 teams' posters were up at the IPAC booth all day Tuesday.)

2023 teams:

Alumni:

  • 167.01 Sperling et al., Student-Led High Altitude Ballooning into Solar Eclipses (Monday 5:30-6:30)
  • 171.03 Rebull et al., NITARP Lesson Plans: Bite-Size Pieces of Authentic Science Research Experiences (Monday 5:30-6:30)
  • 171.06 Newland, Using Google Colab to Teach Hubble-Lemaitre's Law with BOSS Data (Monday 5:30-6:30)
  • 176.02 Rebull et al., Young Stellar Object Candidates in IC 417 (Monday 5:30-6:30)
  • 203.03 Wojciak et al., Exploring Color-Magnitude Relationships Among Quasars with z between 1.5-1.75 (Tuesday 9-10)
  • 458.21 Jones & Rutherford, The Three-Dimensional Structure of IC 2391 (Thursday 1-2)

Quotes

  • I have [already] added many examples related to our project as examples in my classes. In some of the lower level classes I use steps in our process as examples for a discussion of the scientific method.
  • I still think attending AAS is the most interesting part of the experience. As a teacher, watching the subject you teach grow and change right before your eyes is pretty incredible, and as a non-professional astronomer, being so fully embraced by the professional community is a huge ego boost. :)
  • I hope to shift more from the “survive” to “thrive” mode in implementing what I’ve learned and experienced in NITARP. While “authentic scientific research” may not always be practical in my 41-minute high school science classroom, I still want to bring along and model the same wonder, curiosity, optimism for self-improvement and self-actualization, and sense of community that I experienced in NITARP.
  • Given the longevity of the program, the consistency of the mentor astronomers and the inclusion of a mentor educator, I had expected the year to be somewhat prescribed and a path forward to be well-trodden. This was not the case (in a good way!) There were certainly deadlines to be met and techniques which had been employed successfully in the past that we newbies could use, but our original research was just that! Original! The end was not in sight at the beginning, and we ran into issues during our year which we were able to work through together.
  • The sum of my NITARP experiences have changed my professional goals and career plans. I’m currently a Ph.D. student in STEM Education at an R1 university and hope to influence current and future STEM Educators to embark upon a research process with their students.

Related Teams

AAS - 2024