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AAS - 2011

The Winter American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting is the largest meeting of professional astronomers in the world. NITARP educators attend an AAS first to meet their team, then they go home and work remotely for much of the year, and then attend an AAS to present their results.  At any given AAS, then, we could have two NITARP classes attending - those finishing up, and those getting started. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The 2010 and 2011 NITARP teams attended the 2011 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2010 class was presenting results and the 2011 class was starting up. Special feature article on AAS attendees!  There were nearly 60 NITARP-affiliated folks, about 2% of the attendees at the AAS meeting!! We presented 9 posters. Also see Luisa's blog entry about this.

 

Quotes

  • Being there with my students was the most amazingly cool experience. I saw my [students] explode in their willingness to ask questions and express an opinion. [...] They tried every kind of sessions and lots of different topics. They were enthusiastic and energetic about the science. I was totally amazed by how their attendance made them reflective about the year and enthusiastic about science.
  • When we first met to discuss what our project was about, I admit that I felt a little overwhelmed and ill-informed. [..] By the end of Tuesday's sessions, I felt that I had a better general understanding of [my subject]. I will still need help learning the analysis, but I think I'll be able to catch on pretty quickly.
  • Having the opportunity to get new ideas from my peers and discuss projects, activities and strategies helps me to grow and keeps me from becoming stagnant in my teaching. Programs like this are like gold to me because the financial situation in the district in which I teach is such that there is no money available to send our faculty to national conferences.
  • [One of the other teachers with whom I've been working now] sees herself as being able to teach science, [...] and wants to share this excitement and potential with others who are in deaf education who might never have thought that they could teach science[...]. So many educators who work with students who have special needs, specialize in supporting the needs of the students rather than the core STEM subjects, so it seems that becoming empowered in the language and the nature of inquiry and investigation was also life changing for our teacher participants.
  • EVERYTHING had a different flavor this year. [...] I experienced everything through the lens of the research project of the past year. The entire experience was in context. [...] 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.

Related Teams

AAS - 2011