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AAS - 2020

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 2019 and 2020 NITARP teams attended the 2020 January AAS meeting in Honolulu, HI. The 2019 class was presenting results and the 2020 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:

2019 Teams:

NITARP Management:

Returning Alumni Teams:

Quotes

  • I feel very privileged to have been a part of the NITARP experience as well as other opportunities I have had with NASA in education. This is one of the many benefits to the education field, the chance to work with professionals in other fields so that we can bring knowledge and experiences gained into our classrooms for students to see.
  • I believe that no one can walk away from the NITARP experience unchanged. Everyone talks about the learning curve, and it is definitely steeper for some of us than others. I believe the “powers that be” need to know how this year-long astronomy boot camp not only builds discipline knowledge but also group learning dynamics. I have never been so proud to say that I have been part of an exceptional group, and in turn organization. I not only learned what it means to be a teacher leader, but assist in making teacher leaders.
  • [student:] This experience has changed my career plans by directing me in the direction of a research-based career. [...] This experience, especially the conference, has made extremely excited for college and has made me seriously consider graduate school.
  • [student:] I definitely will take more chances at doing “hard” things and things that challenge me. I think I was stuck doing what was comfortable and not really challenging myself but this showed me that I can do really complicated things that are “outside” my major.
  • [...] it is really hard to isolate one moment or cite one experience as the most interesting. In fact, what stands out to me is the cumulative experience. It is comparing my ignorance during the AAS Seattle meeting with my comprehension during the AAS Honolulu meeting. [...] I was a bit overwhelmed and a little unnerved about what I had gotten myself into. [...] during AAS Honolulu, I was amazed at how much more I was able to take in during the conference sessions. Not only that, but I was so pleased and proud and the performance of my students, [...] during the poster session for our science research. They were able to explain our project so coolly and completely. That they benefited so much from the experience is extremely gratifying to me as a teacher.

Related Teams

AAS - 2020