• 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

  • Most of the time from Jan – Oct ’23, I would just say incorrect stuff when trying to talk through the project. It was frustrating thinking I had gotten a handle on one aspect of the project only to be misunderstanding some other aspect. The gentle but constant correcting of [our mentor scientist] was absolutely necessary and useful to the group as we all made these mistakes. Also meeting every single week meant that we all got very comfortable talking to each other and saying the wrong and not bristling at being corrected. Also [our mentor scientist] took a lot (a lot…) of questions from us and the students which again just made the whole group feel comfortable and able to press forward confidently.
  • 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.
  • NITARP has opened my eyes and made me more aware. It’s made me more aware of the larger community of scientists and educators that work together and learn from each other, and I’m grateful to be in that community now. It’s made me more aware of opportunities and possibilities: programs and achievements that I didn’t know I was able to do or even capable of doing, and I hope to do more in the future. And lastly, it made me more aware of curriculum resources out there: content, techniques, and specific activities, and I plan on incorporating them into my classroom.
  • [student:] This experience did most certainly change the way I thought of astronomers. Before NITARP I thought astronomers only looked at pictures and made conclusions based on what they say, but going through this program showed me that this would not me further from the truth. I realized that astronomers also have to work with a lot of numbers as well as large data sets.
  • NITARP has certainly spoiled me on most science teacher PD opportunities… I am much less interested in hearing about textbooks and lessons and curriculum and much more interested in attending workshops that showcase authentic research or working with real data.

Related Teams

AAS - 2024