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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

  • I learned that astronomy takes an incredible amount of focus to get the job done correctly no matter how long it may take. And astronomers have to have a great deal of patience to achieve this.
  • I personally found our open ended instruction sessions the most inspiring. As all team members struggle to program spreadsheets correctly and produce accurate plots, teachers and students shouted across the room asking questions, comparing answers and finding success. It was great when students and teachers compared results, found differences and then went back and problem solved. It was especially pleasing when student results turned out to be the correct results and they then helped their teacher see the error of their ways.
  • I was surprised that I ended up getting help from one of the students on the conversion to energy flux.
  • This has made me re-think what I want to do in college and my future.
  • "Real astronomy" involves a lot of data analysis. It involves a large amount of time spent at a computer rather than at a telescope. Astronomers have to know a lot more about programming than I had expected.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2012 - C-WAYS