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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

  • [student:] I also know that because I was learning alongside my professor it showed me as a student that it is okay for me not to have all of the answers and I think working through a new problem with my [own future] students can help them to see that “failing” and making mistakes is okay and encouraged because there were times that we didn’t know what the next step we needed to take was but we eventually found the way and we learned more doing that.
  • I believe this experience will make me a better ambassador of my college and my fields (sciences and education). I have a renewed interest in working within all science disciplines, unafraid to meet the interests or questions of my students. The NITARP experience was the perfect opportunity at the perfect time. I hope to get involved with more research groups, beyond my campus.
  • [student:] I learned so much and met so many interesting people. It was intense mentally, which I expected it would be, but definitely worth every second.
  • 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 told my students that I had two big take-aways related to the classroom. The first was the realization that science is never really done. Even though we presented our work, there is still more extension work to be done. Also, I gained experience in learning from failure and authentic use of the scientific method. For example, most labs that we do in my class have pre-determined endings. However, in this experience, we there was not a predetermined ending. We got to make decisions along the way that led to authentic results.

Related Teams

AAS - 2020