Chelen Johnson
This virtual team collects all independent research presented in 2015, and done by NITARP or Spitzer alumni with (or without) students outside of a formal NITARP team.
It was wonderful to see the students from last year presenting their posters and talking with astronomers and teachers from all over the world.
The more I talked with astronomers and support staff at the different booths [at my first AAS], the more I began to realize that being a teacher, and an amateur astronomer, is really very different from being a professional astronomer.
I saw kids rise to a challenge and meet it – they learned a lot from the process, each other, and the experience – in ways they could not get in a regular classroom setting at home.
