• 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

  • The most interesting thing I did (fyi, this is like picking between ice cream sundaes and chocolate cake for dessert) was listening to the students present their posters at the iPoster sessions and the IPAC booth. What was interesting to me was their absolute ownership of the work which I am excited about for my own students (as well as for myself). I also enjoyed learning about the science and process behind their work.
  • This experience gave me exactly what I was hoping for, which was a clearer idea of the “steps” of doing a research project and the confidence to lead new students in one on my own.
  • The most interesting thing was getting to present to a variety of different people at AAS and meet so many folks. I felt like an expert because I was an expert at that point.
  • [Now, in my classroom,] I really push my students to collect authentic data and we have been practicing our presentation skills a lot more. I also use the charts and graphs during our astronomy unit and talk about the experience with my students.
  • I am a huge fan of the “NITARP Process,” which in my mind, means to conduct a difficult scientific research project and learn as much as possible in the process under the guidance of a mentor. I conduct my scientific research course this way, and while it is initially a challenge for students, they have life-changing experiences by essentially muscling through those challenges. If anything, this NITARP experience has reinforced my use of the NITARP Process” in my classroom.

Related Teams

AAS - 2024