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  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2024 - StarChasers

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 StarChasers team came to visit in July 2024. The 4 core team educators attended, plus 12 students.

Quotes

  • I’m looking forward to our results and to what generalizations we can make about our regions. I was also impressed (more so than surprised) by the receptiveness of the students to our project and work. Their diligence and enthusiasm was respectable.
  • I was surprised at how different each of the students were in our group. Each of the 12 students had a unique perspective and approach to learning and doing and it was fascinating to watch them all do science in their own special way.
  • The best thing, as always, was working and playing with such great people: the other teachers, their students, my students, and you professional astronomers. It made it so much more enjoyable than just sitting at a screen all day, even a screen full of stars.
  • [student:] The most important things I probably learned was how often we throw out data that we can't really do anything with. It took me a bit to internalize, but realizing the importance of being efficient sifting through usable/unusable data.
  • [student:] The best thing about the trip was the fact I got to do so much stuff that I had never done before. This was such an amazing opportunity to learn about not just the field of astronomy but also about myself. I found out that I actually enjoy interpreting data which I definitely did not think would’ve been fun before.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2024 - StarChasers