Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants

Quotes

• [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?".
• [student:] The most surprising thing was that I gained a renewed interest in space-stuff!
• [student:] I thought we would get to actually observe stars through a telescope, [...] I also did not expect so much time to be spend on the computer.
• The most important thing I learned was that it's ok sometimes to not know the answer. As teachers, many times we become so consumed by having the right answer for students. Meanwhile, our students are so consumed by finding the right answer that they miss the learning. This week showed me that no matter how much work you do (in graph, periodogram, histogram, phased curve, or whatever form) you may still not come to the conclusion you thought you would... and that's ok!
• [student:] During my NITARP experience, I really saw science come to life. As a student, I was always being told to do all of these math problems and learn how to do all of this stuff that seemed so irrelevant to me.. but when I came here and worked with [..] two AMAZING astronomers, they helped me see what all of that stuff is really for. [..] Finally all of those graphs I learned about years ago in math class were put to good use. Without histograms and scatter plots, our research could not have been as successful. I will also never forget the moment that Steve told us we had to calculate the mass of all of these stars that we were looking at..we could not just Google the answer like I am so used to doing...we had to actually sit down and calculate the masses. Then he taught us about Kepler's laws and how to use Kepler's third law to use the star's surface gravity and radius to calculate its mass. It looked like something my physics teacher would have given me to solve earlier in the year, but instead of being on a homework assignment, it was actually relevant and necessary. I guess taking what I've learned as a student in the classroom (even though it all seems kind of tedious and unnecessary to learn sometimes) and applying it in the real world--not as a school project, but to be doing real research--is the best thing about the trip.

Related Teams

• They Might Be Giants/Ciardi and Howell