• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2017

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 2016 and 2017 NITARP teams attended the 2017 January AAS meeting in Dallas, TX. The 2016 class was presenting results and the 2017 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. All of the posters we presented are here:


Quotes

  • Having real data to show students and being able to show them how/why math is used in ‘real life’ as well as being able to share the ongoing process of science to students (versus a 2 day lab) is invaluable to me.
  • The students often bring a new perspective to things that maybe we as teachers might not have any longer.
  • NITARP has changed how I teach and the focus of my classroom time. After this experience I have included more long term research work and scientist/student partnering into the classroom. I have reached out to local professionals to act as mentors for student work and to develop partnerships I hope can continue in the far future. I show students more use of technology and integrate more coding, use of databases, and online research tools to aid student work and support topic curriculum. I have felt I really need to find more ways to get more students the change to do work like this because of the incredibly high interest I have form the whole area.
  • This is an authentic scientific experience that provides students the opportunity to do real science, build professional relationships, practice 21st century skills, work with many different individuals and speak publicly about their work. It is everything a science program plans to teach students in a typical 4-year high school program, all in one experience.
  • I especially value the NITARP experience for putting me in the position of being a novice trying to master content that was over my head. I gained a much greater understanding of how some of my students must feel sitting in my or another’s class. It has helped me be a more empathetic educator while also helping me to better understand how to reach and motivate those students.

AAS - 2017