• NASA
  • IPAC

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

  • [student:] I think that patience and dedication are important for an astronomer because astronomy is a long process. I think that being able to communicate and ask for help are also extremely important because astronomy includes a lot of people looking at the same thing and seeing different details that need to be shared.
  • The best thing about the trip was getting to spend time together working. I enjoyed watching the kids get to know each other and the other adults. I watched them grow in confidence and it made me feel very accomplished. Even though I was exhausted at the end of every day, it was well spent time and that face-to-face block of time was necessary for making sure my students and I understood everything.
  • ‘Real’ astronomy is not the myth of staying up all night looking through a telescope. It is more so working with data to ask and solve questions. A lot of computer skill is needed.
  • [student:] This experience most definitely changed the way that I think about astronomy. It allowed me to see that not all the data that is received is the most accurate due to the limitations of the instruments and many other objects in space.
  • [student:] The most surprising thing to me was how relaxed it was. I was expecting a “cookbook” experience and instead we were given the tools and then figured it out ourselves. I really liked that and I think I understood everything better because of it.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2016 - LLAMMa