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:

2016 teams:
- Science Poster - Orr et al., "Finding High Quality Young Star Candidates in Ceph C Using X-ray, Optical, and IR Data"
- Education Poster - Orr et al., "STEM Education is Missing This ..."
- Science Poster - Kilts et al., "Searching for Short-Term Variable Active Galactic Nuclei: A Vital Step Towards Using AGN as Standard Candles"
- Education Poster - Kohrs et al., "NITARP: Changing Perceptions of Science Among Secondary Students and Teachers"
Returning Alumni teams:
- Education Poster - Bensel & Cool, "Are We Alone? GAVRT Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Project"
- Education Poster - Tran et al., "Analysis of Visual Double Stars"
- Science Poster - Johnson et al., "An Infrared Search for Young Stellar Objects in IC 1396"
- Science Poster - Wilson et al., "Searching for Infrared Excesses around White Dwarf Stars"
- Education Poster - Linder et al., "Confirming and Improving Ross Variable Star RV Del"
- Science Poster - Linder et al., "Rotational Study of Ambiguous Taxonomic Classified Asteroids"
NITARP Management:
- Evaluations And Impact (presented as education poster): Rebull et al., "The NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP): Lessons Learned"

Quotes

[..]one of the greatest joys of NITARP was the enthusiasm with which questions were encouraged, and the way you [..] answered them – always with respect, regardless of the level of the question; always taking time to fill in gaps, and always at the right depth (“as simple as possible but not simpler”). And so I asked a lot of questions and very much enjoyed the answers and discussions.
Because NITARP turns teachers and students into colleagues at the same academic level, I got to experience what it’s like to be a student struggling with exciting new material. This has increased my functional empathy with students. Specifically, (1) I am more aware of assumptions I’m making about student prior knowledge; (2) I take more time with each step; (3) I get confirmation from more students before moving on.
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.
I hate to admit this, but I’d never done a poster session before. So making and presenting a poster was an enormous delight of learning for me.
This experience will be hard to top. I may try to create a partnership with staff at a local university or community college to do more research projects. I also want to get better at programming. That is a valuable skill to share with students. NITARP helped me to see these opportunities.

AAS - 2017

Quotes

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