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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:] This program completely altered my perception of what astronomy is and what astronomers actually do. Sure, there is a lot of data analysis and paper writing, but seeing everyone come together at AAS showed me the passion these people have for their careers and it was a really cool thing to see.
  • I have added a whole new dimension of astronomical research and support for my students working on individual projects and competitions that was missing. I’ve also added a plethora of new contacts, both educators and scientists, to my professional learning network. My confidence and ability to teach students more space related curriculum has also increased.
  • I did not anticipate how polished and impressive the posters and presentations were from last year’s cohort (Sunday afternoon, Monday evening and the individual poster presentations in the exhibit hall). Students and teachers were really well-versed on the astronomy as well as the data collection and processing. It really showed how much was learned in a relatively short time.
  • To be able to be a part of actual scientific research is what science education is all about. From a teacher perspective how can we prepare the next round of scientists if we do not have first hand knowledge of what scientists do? With this opportunity, we can involve students in the research process and give them a better understanding of how scientific research is done -- thus preparing them for their own future discoveries.
  • [scientist not involved in NITARP team:] Seeing such a diverse group [of students ...], all of them really sharp - I told them, I am a physicist, not an astronomer, so they had to explain it to me... in one beat, they backed-up, tag-teamed me and explained the whole poster — that was awesome! Tells me the world is in good hands.

Related Teams

AAS - 2019