Chelen Johnson
They Might Be Giants are using data from the Kepler mission to classify the brightness changes of giant stars in an effort to understand how the observed brightness variations of giant stars may relate to the different stages of giant star evolution.
By participating in NITARP, I'm leading by example as I'm trying to be a lifelong learner. The students are seeing that there are things that I don't understand, and it's not in a ‘gotcha’ type of way, but in a more reassuring way that we're all going through this together. I like collaborating with my students as if they were colleagues of mine, and I think that is a very redeeming prospect of this opportunity that will benefit them in the long run.
I had an amazing, exhausting time at the AAS meeting. I found myself continually challenged by the intellectual level and knowledge being shared.
Finally much of the [AAS 2009] invited talk by Eugene Churazov on Galaxy Clusters and Black Holes I found to be understandable because he used many equations from ideal gas laws that are familiar to high school teachers and their students. In talking with Dr. Churazov after his talk, he re-emphasized how far one could go on this topic with these familiar and seemingly simple equations.
