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

Thanks, again and again, for such a great opportunity and experience. I am serious - I really want to find a way to make this kind of thing more available. Teachers need this...badly. When I think about the challenges that I often had with my science teacher peers at my former school, it was because my way of looking at things was so different. NITARP explains why - science and research are the focus for me, rather than covering content. The skills this program provides are critical for student preparation and most teachers have not been given these. How can they then be expected to teach them?
[student:] I once thought that being an astronomer was an intangible career. I thought it was only reserved for the Stephen Hawkings and Neil Degrasse Tysons of the world. But what NITARP made me realize is that not only could “regular” people become astronomers, but that I could become an astronomer. Learning the process of conducting our research was surprisingly feasible and made me feel much more confident in my ability to become an astronomer.
[student:] After this experience I find astronomy more interesting and I see it as a bigger field than what i thought it was before.
[student:] I learned one very important thing about astronomy. I’d always had this romanticised picture in my head of astronomers gazing through telescopes at the night sky and making revolutionary discoveries left and right. Thus, this trip was a bit of a wake up call for me; I now know that astronomy involves a lot more spreadsheet work and data analysis before any life-changing discoveries can be made.
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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