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AAS - 2014

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 2013 and 2014 NITARP teams attended the 2014 January AAS meeting in National Harbor, MD (outside of Washington, DC). The 2013 class was presenting results and the 2014 class was starting up. We had a lot of alumni raise their own money to come back as well. We sent about 75 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. One of our participants, Peggy Piper, participated in a Congressional briefing on Thursday! All the posters we presented are linked from the team's pages below, except for HG-WELS and SIRXS, because they are the two new teams.

Quotes

  • My skills and knowledge as a science teacher have grown exponentially in the last year.
  • [student:] This experience changed my views not just about astronomy, but science in general because it showed me just how much little things interact with each other and form a big picture understanding. This will change the way I look at almost all my subjects, as now I will start thinking from the get-go where everything fits in the goal I am trying to achieve, whether it be economics or physics.
  • [student:] this experience changed how I viewed astronomy. I always looked at astronomy big picture, but realize now that much of astronomy is numerical data analyzing.
  • NITARP was a great experience for both myself and my students.
  • It seems to me that programs like NITARP and other engaging education programs need to be studied/analyzed and results used to drive new programs, both in high school and college. We can’t depend on student interest only to supply the next generation of astronomers. We need to be actively engaged in that task. I am surprised that so few astronomers see the urgency of the need.

Related Teams

AAS - 2014