Published: January 15, 2009
Our Education/ Outreach poster is really very comprehensive. It clearly outlines all of the work that was done.
Manhasset was busy preparing their research in the months since the summer training sessions. Students learned to work with APT, MOPEX, Excel, Leopard and Spot. The Manhasset group met regularly with the Oil City group via Skype conferences. Students used the criteria to select candidate YSO's. Following this they evaluated the images, determined the flux densities and created Color/Color diagrams. From this, Spectral Energy Distributions were created and an assessment of the YSO forming characteristics of LDN 981 and 425 was completed.
4 Manhasset students; Ashley Peter, William Wassmer (part of the original Spitzer training program), AJ Scaramucci and Rose Haber (interested students that developed their knowledge through classroom training at Manhasset) attended the AAS meeting. At the conference students were active in helping to discuss the 3 poster boards completed by the entire Spitzer group.
What was especially important to me as an educator was the way that the students planned their own schedule of listening to research presentations and reviewing poster presentations. The students were very active participants in the conference and they took away an amazing amount of information and excitement. One parent told me that her normally quiet son spent the entire weekend relating stories of the experience to his family and friends.