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Summer Visit - 2012 - C-WAYS

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 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 C-WAYS team came to visit in July 2012. The core team educators attended, plus 12 students, and two additional scientists.  Dr. JD Armstrong (LCOGT/UH) and Dr. Babar Ali (IPAC) also assissted.

Quotes

  • We did real science!
  • [student:] I had no idea that astronomy involved so much math! When I was first presented with a super long list of unit conversions and formulas, I almost gave up on a career in astronomy. I felt really overwhelmed because math has never been my strong suit. After successfully completing a few SEDs and color-color plots, I felt accomplished and realized that I wasn't as bad at math as I previously thought. Maybe I do have a chance at being an astronomer after all.
  • I learned that I am a lot more passionate about astronomy than I previously thought.
  • [student:] Meeting and listening to these experienced professionals made the world of science very realistic and made me feel more capable of having a potential future in this area of work.
  • The teachers and students did change the way I look at astronomy education. I saw more clearly that science education often goes from one success to the next never showing the details required to reach the scientific understanding. I wonder if an important point of the scientific process is not lost in this approach.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2012 - C-WAYS