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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

  • [student:] There is no way that I could have even imagined doing a project like this without the guidance that I had. Now, after the fact I believe that with some fluency in python that I could do our project in a mere fraction of the time that we spent collaboratively. The fact that others had to depend on me getting my work done was a big motivation. Another was my passion for learning, especially when I had the opportunity to apply it. I could not have learned or applied anything of this project without guidance, I would simply be wandering blindly.
  • 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 gained a new respect for astronomers and the patience required to do work in that field. My job as a teacher resets every year and is in constant flux, whereas there are astronomers who may spend their entire life working toward one discovery. Then, they may not even still be alive when the discovery is officially made. They were just one step in the process. That kind of persistence is impressive.
  • I was never able to pursue any formal instruction in astronomy so it always seemed out of reach and astronomers seemed beyond my scope. This experience opened my eyes and alleviated a lot of the hesitancy I felt in pursuing something I’ve always enjoyed and been passionate about.
  • Watching the kids from different schools interact was one of my favorite parts of this experience that I completely didn’t anticipate. The kids came from totally different worlds and they had a commonality (loving astronomy/ research, and being nerds) but otherwise their lives weren’t necessarily similar. This is a huge benefit of the NITARP program, and although not a stated program goal, I believe it has tremendous value.

Related Teams

AAS - 2019