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AAS - 2015

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 2014 and 2015 NITARP teams attended the 2015 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2014 class was presenting results and the 2015 class was starting up. We had many alumni raise money to come back as well. We sent about 50 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here:

Quotes

  • [student:] I was worried that they would be boring old man scientists when in reality they were people from all different back grounds talking passionately about what they love.
  • I really thought astronomers knew everything about the night sky and never realized there were several specializations within the content.
  • High school students are hungry for authentic research experiences, and both high school teachers and students benefit immensely from having contact with a professional astronomer. This may seem inefficient (because it costs a lot of money to connect individuals with professionals), but it can change lives, and there are wonderful ripple effects.
  • [student:] I really was surprised at the vastness and variety of everything presented at the conference. I had no idea what the AAS conference would be like since I've never attended a convention event like this one, and was shocked to realize how progressive and advanced astronomy was. It's amazing to realize that the knowledge presented at the conference was just the surface of the knowledge really possessed by the brightest minds in astronomy.
  • One of the most surprising aspects of this process has been to discover just welcoming everyone has been. MOST of the astronomers with whom we interacted have been incredibly gracious and generous

Related Teams

AAS - 2015