• NASA
  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2023 - SCHARP

The summer visit to Caltech is 4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The SCHARP team came to visit in June 2023. The 5 core team educators attended, plus 10 students.

Quotes

  • Real astronomy is making sense of data, asking questions, and trying to develop an approach answering those questions. Everything we did on this visit was scientific research. We asked questions, looked at data, asked more questions, compared existing information to visual data, and made plenty of mistakes and had to start over.
  • This experience made me think about the massive amount of astronomical data generated and archived. There must be all kinds of new discoveries waiting to be found in those data!
  • The least surprising thing about the summer meeting at Caltech was the rich, immersive environment that allowed the teachers and students to learn a large amount of content in a short period of time and apply it immediately.
  • Qualities that are important to be an astronomer are perseverance and a willingness to learn from mistakes. Astronomers also have to be effective communicators in order to discuss their findings.
  • [student:] The NITARP experience has certainly influenced my thoughts on college. Even though I am not considering majoring in astronomy-related fields, I think the research experience has ignited my passion for further participating in research in college or my future career.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2023 - SCHARP