AAS - 2022

Quotes

• The NITARP experience is guided by Jedi Masters… they perceive the force and guide it to flow through the process in harmony with the dynamic interactions between the science, the data, the people, and the products that all need to dance together to achieve a meaningful result. The impact on the participants of NITARP is significant, measurable, positive and spiritually inspiring. We come out the “other side” of the NITARP experience a changed person in ways that we never could have created on our own… so THANK YOU, Thank You, thank you for the wonderful opportunity that is NITARP.
• The main resources [we used] were the image data set that are available via the IPAC and other resources for our archival work. This combined with the tools that are integrated to allow easy searching for, processing of, sorting, summarizing, etc of the information was amazing. This combined with the ability of our professional astronomer to allow the space for us to experience the learning curve for what is available, how to get it, manipulate it, summarize it, analyze it and then to finalize all of that with the magic mojo of coding to crunch all of that into code to crank out hundreds of products ready for the next steps in the process was so impressive and empowering. I may not have the time to become a coder, but I appreciate the talent and skill that it brings to the science more so now that I have completed NITARP.
• It has become commonplace for me to contextualize a concept, lesson or procedure through the reality of my NITARP experience. This makes the experience of my students live in a space in which the science itself is not a body of knowledge or a collective of results, but instead a living thing… in which they are participants already and that can grow with their engagement and growth in knowledge and skills. There is always a question for the now, a process for challenging ourselves to try to figure out an answer, and an infinite prospect for new question that arise from both the process of inquiry and the results obtained.
• I always wanted to publish, as I said in my original application to the program. Somehow, being exposed to the papers in this most recent literature search, and realizing that writing papers is part of your lives, finally got me moving. Now, just today in fact, I sent off my first peer-reviewed paper with what should be the last round of editorial revisions! So, thank you for normalizing publishing to me.
• The NITARP experience provides the highest quality environment of building on the existing, limited, knowledge and skill sets of both teachers and students while challenging both in terms of both their depth and breadth. But more importantly, because it is real-world science carried out in collaboration with a team of both professionals and amateurs, it is a develops the personal perception of the participants of themselves as already being on the spectrum of what a scientist is and does… seeing themselves moving persistently along that spectrum toward a more knowledgeable and skilled place… and developing the meaningful confidence in their ability to pursue the next steps to remain engaged in STEM inquiry in the future. Participants have a personal and accurate first-person knowledge of what a career in STEM might require… which helps them to refine and define their own academic and professional development goals for the future. And, the engaging way in which this is accomplished creates new participants in the pipeline to professional participation in, and support of, the STEM disciplines.

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