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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:] In school we sorely lack both exposures to authentic research and exploration opportunities -- this is a bit of both.
  • [student:] I didn’t realize how much math and computation went behind the analysis.
  • My NITARP experience reinforced my desire to build on my current classroom experiences and research how effective authentic research experiences are at the high school level, and especially with English Language Learners and other underserved groups.
  • [student:] I used to think astronomy included looking through telescopes and gathering data each time, but this project showed me that a lot of astronomy is just using existing data. Also I realized there’s a lot more graphing in astronomy than I expected.
  • [student:] To be able to say that I was involved in something so real is a bit surreal. I’m finding it hard to articulate what the experience was like, eye-opening, humbling, overwhelming, nothing quite fits. It’s changed me in a way I can’t really describe. Heart-opening. That would be the closest I could get to convey this feeling of just openness. Being open to new information, to new ideas, to new people, to new experiences, to myself. This unplaceable excitement for something that’s not really tangible. This was the most profound experience of my life.

Related Teams

AAS - 2016