Chelen Johnson
Investigtating Moving-group Photometry and Understanding Lightcurve Structures (IMPULS) will be studying rotation rates of stars in the young nearby Beta Pic Moving Group.
Because of NITARP my teaching has grown for the better. The entire project really made me appreciate and re-evaluate the scientific process. I was amazed by the support and well organized lines of communication, and found a new level of respect for Google Sheets.The number of connections I have made with other astronomy and physics teachers has really helped me find new and interesting ways to make physics more relevant to students.
I did not anticipate the amount of people that were not "NITARP" but instead simply "fellow" astronomers and researchers that came by our team's poster to discuss our findings. That for me was [..] was a most pleasant surprise.
One of my students at Niles West had become interested in GRBs as we thought they were the results of mergers of black holes [but we learned this was wrong at an AAS plenary talk]. My student thought it was interesting that scientists could change their minds about how things worked.