Chelen Johnson
LLAMMa: Luisa, Laura, Alexandra, Milton -- looking for new YSOs in Ceph-C, using IR, optical, and X-rays.
I did not anticipate how much the astronomers would trust us right away. I felt more like a colleague than a student, which was relieving (and maybe a bit stressful, because I probably would have found it easier to ask questions coming from a student role).
What was especially important to me as an educator was the way that the students planned their own schedule of listening to research presentations [at the AAS] and reviewing poster presentations. The students were very active participants in the conference and they took away an amazing amount of information and excitement. One parent told me that her normally quiet son spent the entire weekend relating stories of the experience to his family and friends.
I gave a presentation on my group's experience with NITARP at a dinner for about 100 members of the Waynflete School community[..]. The crowd was very impressed with the program and the idea of having students not only conduct authentic scientific research, but then also be able to present their findings to the scientific community.
