• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2021

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.  This year, the pandemic forced the Jan 2021 meeting online, and meant that we didn't select a new class for 2021, so only one class is attending the online AAS. 

The 2020 NITARP teams attended the 2021 January AAS. We sent about 30 people to the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here:

2020 Teams:

Also see video "turbo talks" from ORMA team : science and education.

 

Quotes

  • What took place over the previous 12 months for myself and my students involved in the project was authentic learning. My students and I were interested in the project not because of a grade to receive at the end of the project nor because of a test that would assess our knowledge and determine our progression with respect to our peers.
  • The NITARP experience, with its focus on the teacher, and the allowance of inclusion of students, is a powerful engine for accomplishing [sharing how science works]. It ensures that the limited capacity of the program is leveraged through the many years, and multiple classes taught by a single teacher. The involvement of students binds these teachers to embrace participation to a depth and degree that makes the experience understandable to their future students by providing the evidence that a small number of their current students are getting it… it makes sense as it is occurring. And the passage through the whole process from unlimited brainstorming, to focused questioning, selection of a research topic, literature search, proposal, research, analysis, visualization, communication and defense of your results allows one to know, first person, how this engine works.
  • [student:] I was fascinated by how rich a picture of the cosmos we are able to put together with such scant information from it. I think it’s really cool that we can know so much about our universe just by measuring the amount of light coming from different directions and how wiggly that light is.
  • [student:] Astronomers are more sociable than I previously thought them to be. All of them are happy and willing to talk about their work and they are also very willing to answer any questions you ask them. They are also more open to amateur astronomers, like me, and are willing to describe the basics.
  • [..] as someone who has both careers in science and education, this is the most authentic experience I've had that satisfies both. I never felt like I was just a teacher observing, nor did I wonder how to take it back to the class.

Related Teams

The 2025 NITARP application is now available! Go here for the instructions and here to upload your application. Applications are due by 3pm Pacific time, Friday Sep 13, 2024.