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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

  • [student: Astronomy] is much more [about] teamwork [than I thought.]
  • In my astronomy classes, I am [now] much more likely to refer to current research in my discussions in class. In addition, I routinely use astronomy archives in my astronomy research class -- examples include, Catalina Sky Survey, SIMBAD, ADS, NED, and VSX. I am aware of the power of these archives because of NITARP.
  • [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.
  • Scientific research is a team process which takes time, creativity and grit to develop. Current classrooms and education models do not reflect this or prepare students to have those skills.
  • [student:] [This experience] made me want to try astrophysics as a career

AAS - 2016