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AAS - 2016

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 2015 and 2016 NITARP teams attended the 2016 January AAS meeting in Kissimmee, FL. The 2015 class was presenting results and the 2016 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, and a special article on NITARP alumni at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here:

Quotes

  • Watching the students present the research we had been working on the last year was absolutely the best part of the experience for me. They made me so proud. [..] they charged straight ahead. Answering questions and holding their own with these professionals. They knew their limitations and when they reach them they admitted it and did not try and fake their way through.
  • I loved seeing the progress of science as it unfolded. New results were shared, discussed, questioned, and next steps were stated that could be worked on the next week in some cases. It was amazing to see “science builds on itself” for myself. I was not expecting to have that opportunity.
  • [This experience] solidified for me how kind and curious astronomers are. I think that going in to an experience like this as a K-12 educator, I expected to feel a little bit like an outsider, but that was never my experience. I found that all of the people I talked to at our poster were warm and genuine and just enjoyed hearing about our experiences and thoughts.
  • [student:] I think the AAS meeting seems really fun and makes the idea of doing research as a job more exciting. I like how much networking astronomers get to do at these meetings, and it was great to get a chance to experience this while still in high school.
  • I have already rewritten several labs to include data analysis with Excel. I have also started mentoring an astronomy club at school.

Related Teams

AAS - 2016