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AAS - 2013

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.

We were out in force at the AAS 2013 meeting in Long Beach, CA! A record number of NITARP-affiliated people attended, including the 2012 class finishing up and the 2013 class getting going. The 80 or so NITARP-affiliated folks made up about 3% of the AAS attendees.

Special article on AAS attendees!  And don't miss Danielle Miller's blog!

Quotes

  • I gained much appreciation for the sheer volume of data processing that goes on in astronomy. I did not realize how quantitative astronomy is. In the classroom, I think that I will be more interested in finding out how the things that we are learning were first discovered.
  • Mentoring adults in these capacities improves my ability to act more as a mentor to my classroom students, allowing them to become more self-sufficient learners. I feel this has improved my ability to mentor my colleagues as well.
  • 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.
  • Data taken for one purpose may often be exploited for other purposes. This is the genius of the archives. Even without access to a telescope, anyone with ideas, intelligence, and little computer savvy can do a lot of good science!
  • It was a real partnership between scientists and educators. All questions and suggestion were taken seriously and with respect.

Related Teams

AAS - 2013