Chelen Johnson
SIRXS (SEIP IR Excess Survey) : looking for IR excesses around stars found within the Spitzer Enhanced Imaging Products (SEIP) source list.
Attended Kepler announcement of the new planets. Later that day teachers who were actually teaching in my high school e-mailed me to tell me about the planets just discovered. I had to tell them I'd known about that for hours. I was there at the announcement by the scientists involved.
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.
When I look at how the intellectual process changed over the last year I imagine it going from a diffuse look at research and the entire conference experience to the extreme focus on our own project during the year and finally reaching outward again in Seattle to incorporate new information and understandings. Returning to AAS made the experience complete.
