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AAS - 2019

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 2018 and 2019 NITARP teams attended the 2019 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2018 class was presenting results and the 2019 class was starting up. We had 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:

2018 Teams:

NITARP Management:

Returning Alumni Teams:

 

Quotes

  • I was very excited to learn what research we will be doing. All of the information about the program itself and what is expected of us was very good on Sunday. I do not think the reality of the experience has really hit me yet but I’m sure it will over the next several months. It just seems unreal that we will be using data from the Kepler and Spitzer telescopes and possibly Chandra as well to look into an area of star formation and try to discover new young stars! Truly amazing to be a part of this!
  • [student:] [NITARP is] truly a once in a lifetime experience. The friendships and connects that I made throughout this program would have never happened without it. It truly opens students to new experiences and helps them figure out what they want to do later in life. Along with that, AAS was a massive learning experience for anyone with an interest in astronomy. It’s just at a level of knowledge that you can’t get while in high school without this opportunity.
  • NITARP is going to be hard to top. It’s not just a day long or week long passive PD program where information is given to you but an authentic research experience. I don’t really know what else is out there like this but I’d like to find it and do it.
  • I am trying to make my astronomy class more discussion-based and trying to make it more inquiry-based. I was able to network with other teachers and got some ideas of how to move away from lecture. Although lecture has some usefulness I really want to try to be more inquiry driven.
  • This will be a tough professional development to beat. Not only did I make a great network with other educators, but it reinforced the importance of inquiry-based learning and the importance of there not always being an answer.

Related Teams

AAS - 2019