Chelen Johnson
This virtual team collects all independent research presented in 2013, and done by NITARP or Spitzer alumni with students outside of a formal NITARP team. In 2013, we have one article in The Physics Teacher, and one poster on young stars.
I felt as if I was on a treasure hunt to identify new methods of confirming redshift values for our candidate cluster members.
The most interesting thing was the total experience of working with such amazing professional astronomers doing real science. I really did not know what to expect. The experience did exceed, in a positive way, all my imaginations.
My NITARP experience has made me rethink my entire approach to science education. Many of my students expect me to do the work and pretty much hand it to them all wrapped up and neat. Science education must involve a great deal of discovery by the student and not a string of topics with definitions.
