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Summer Visit - 2013 - C-CWEL

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 "C-CWEL" team came to visit in August 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 11 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] By understanding the information that SEDs were providing, I was able to draw conclusions about stars and say whether or not they could possibly be a YSO candidate and that's a pretty cool skill!
  • [student: This experience changed the way I thought about astronomy.] Very much so – I figured out it is a competitive field, it really is fun, it is very different than the science we do in school (in a good way).
  • [Three best things about this trip:] Learning a new skill and the great gains in understanding and knowledge about the subject. Watching the students from a wide variety of locations and background come together and form friendships, working relationships, and build support for the project and each other. Getting the opportunity to work on a project such as this with other educators from various disciplines and backgrounds come together to form friendships, working relationships, and build support for the project and each other.
  • [This trip] did have a big impact on what my students thought – it was very eye-opening for them to see that astronomers were not stuck in front of a telescope all night, have high computer skills but can also not understand all of what a particular program does or how, and are ‘normal’. Great for them.
  • [student:] Being able to work with professional astronomers on real data is a unique and inspiring opportunity that I feel privileged to participate in. Another important aspect to me was being able to meet other students from different states who had similar interests.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - C-CWEL