Chelen Johnson
I rarely get out among other teachers in the same field as I am, with similar interest and motivations, and even less often do I have time to be in the company of professional scientists to see and hear what they are doing, how it is being done, what technologies are being used, etc. Without this type of program to get me to a meeting like the AAS I would never be able to put all of this together.
This experience really made me realize how broad a career field Astronomy really is.
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.