• NASA
  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2014 - HG-WELS

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 HG-WELS team came to visit in July 2014. The core team educators attended, plus 10 students.

 

Quotes

  • Theoretically the work could have been done online, but the students really needed the hands-on help and explanations, as they had never been exposed to those units or the deep details of importing and working with data in Excel. They also needed the feeling of community, of meeting other students with similar interests from other schools, and the sense of identity and recognition the summer visit gave them. If they had done this only online, it would not have had the same degree of impact or motivation for them. [...] Working directly with scientists at the Spitzer Science Center gives them a chance to know what real scientific research is like. They are all very excited for the AAS trip, which will give them even more exposure to real science and scientists.
  • One student [...] has told me she now is interested in engineering as a career and all are interested in pursuing their own astronomy research for science fair competitions. I have several new students who have come to our school specifically because of this project and the chance to do some real astronomy.
  • [student:] I was surprised to learn that we didn’t have the results we thought we were going to have. I also wasn’t expecting to do so much Excel work, but I was glad we did because it was a great opportunity to learn.
  • [student: Being in person at Caltech was important because] It also helped to have someone explain why we were doing each step and its significance for our overall project. It was also nice to have someone there to check your work and troubleshoot with you if something looks off.
  • [student:] Perseverance, patience, and creativity are all important to be an astronomer. And of course, it’s helpful if you are smart and good at math and science.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2014 - HG-WELS