• NASA
  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The "They Might Be Giants" team came to visit in August 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 6 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] I also observed that [our astronomers] did not always know the answers..sometimes they were as lost in what the data was saying and where our research was going as the rest of us. Scientists don't always know the answers...I think the most impactful thing that I heard was "When scientists know what they're doing, they need to stop. When engineers don't know what they're doing, they need to stop."
  • [student:] The best part was the time spent in the room researching. I actually enjoyed listening to people talk and use mathematical/scientific terms as if they were casual parts of everyday conversation. It was really fun after a lifetime of students grumbling "I'll never need this in real life, why are we learning this?".
  • I think most people carry misconceptions of scientists as a whole... but I also think most people don't even personally know an astronomer or scientist. The fact that I know and have worked with scientists is going to be helpful to share with students.
  • [student:] The best thing about the trip was being able to learn from and work along side real astronomers.
  • The process of gathering and analyzing data was very important to help show my kids what real research is like. And since our data didn't come out nice and neat like some labs do, it really helped push my kids to think outside the box.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants