Chelen Johnson
This virtual team collects all independent research presented in 2014, and done by NITARP or Spitzer alumni with (or without) students outside of a formal NITARP team.
I have a much better sense of what research astronomy is about now, and I think I will have more confidence to try new things (related to astronomy) going forward.
Also revealed [at the 2012 AAS] was the fact that students rarely mention “creativity” and “imagination” when describing science. This tells me, as a planetarium educator, we must do a better job communicating on how discoveries are made in science.
Real astronomy is very exciting! I was not expecting to have to solve problems in excel the way we did. We were asked to answer simple questions or develop simple graphs at times but in order to get correct results (as far as we can tell) our team had to parse our skills and play with logic. I remember creating my first SED: I became so excited I could not sit down anymore. Another teacher was so thrilled they raised their hands and yelled in excitement. It was the first time we had results; it was a thrill.
