• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2023

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 2022 and 2023 NITARP teams attended the 2023 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2022 class was presenting results and the 2023 class was starting up. We had alumni raise money to come back as well. We sent about 30 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:

2022 Teams:

Alumni:

  • Granucci, "Does a Solar Telescope generate more interest in astronomy than Night Observing Telescope?" (talk)
  • Kniezewski, "To Rain or Not to Rain: Correlating GOES Flare Class and Coronal Rain Statistics" (poster and press release; student alumna!)

Quotes

  • The AAS was an amazing experience, as was the entire NITARP program.
  • In [...] NITARP, students and teachers get to be exposed to the process of being [an] astronomer. [...] Beyond the process, the teacher and student alike learn that science is conversational in which you learn together, help each other, and present your findings to others.
  • Through NITARP, I’ve become aware of many more opportunities available to teachers than I ever knew existed.
  • NITARP gives kids a chance to move from the staged, contained, constrained world of science demonstration and rote learning methodologies to the messy, chaotic, beautiful, and sometimes nonsensical world of real science. Kids get a chance to learn about pushing at the boundaries of human knowledge where astronomers have to use real world data that does not necessarily fit any previous theory about what is supposed to happen. Teachers and students have to learn about the technology and use their brains to consider the meaning of this data, looking for trends and similarities to tease out possible explanations.
  • NITARP has expanded my vision and increased my confidence.

AAS - 2023