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:

Education Poster - Rebull, "A Way to Categorize Programs that Bring Data to the Classroom"

Returning Alumni Teams:

Quotes

For astronomy, I underestimated the amount of data analysis and programming required compared to observation skills. It seems like introductory high school and college courses cover a good amount of content but not the relevant research skills.
[student:] I never knew what astronomers and their work is like. It is a work that I respect a lot. My view towards NITARP throughout the entire experience has only gotten increasingly better.
It is programs like this that have kept me in the teaching profession, have taught me to be am more effective teacher, and should be replicated in all fields and at all levels in all schools. If they really want to increase student success and have our students ready for the workforce and college we have to be providing them – and more importantly their teachers – with the experience in the ‘real world’. Teacher prep programs are out of touch with reality and do not provide the needed exposure or training to help them help our students succeed. Students are worn down with testing and high-pressure curriculum heavy course work that doesn’t develop innovation, support curiosity, or inspire. We need to change the system for all at all levels with cooperation between educators and other fields – and start treating teachers as professionals equal to engineers, nurses, writers, biologists, business managers, etc. We need innovative programs like this to make real change in our educational system.
I wondered how our work would be received during the poster session. It was encouraging to see how genuinely interested and supportive the astronomers that visited were.
It’s really something to get to sit there and hear scientists announce brand new discoveries, especially when they were announcing new exoplanets that had been found. The main thing that surprised me was just how vast the field of astronomy is, and that not everyone is an expert in everything. It made me feel a lot better about all the things I didn’t know. I was constantly writing down things to look up later, especially the meaning of various acronyms.

AAS - 2019

Quotes

Related Teams