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Summer Visit - 2016 - LLAMMa

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 LLAMMa team came to visit in July 2016. The 3 core team educators attended, plus 11 students.

Quotes

  • I do not think that the work done at Caltech as a team could be done online as effectively as it is in person. The work takes time with team members face to face as we learn and start the processes that make up the bulk of the work. I believe that that time together is very valuable.
  • The use of large data bases of information like IRSA are a great tool and I have come to understand that large databases are a more important source of astronomy and science research than I believed before or believe the general population understands. I like getting to understand how to use these tools.
  • [student:] Yes. I really like [astronomy]. I had an idea of what [astronomers] did but, actually doing it made me realize how much i actually liked astronomy. And as for astronomers… I realized that there is a large team of people from various backgrounds that contributed in their own ways.
  • Overall, *all* of my experiences with real scientists, especially those who work in the field to collect data, contradict the simple model of the hypothesis-experiment-conclusion that textbooks taught me and (attempt) to teach students even to this day.
  • [student:] I think it was way better that we did everything in person because we got to meet everybody and it was much easier to ask questions and learn from the questions of others. The group changed as we got to know each other and we all became friends.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2016 - LLAMMa