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October 2007-January 2008 updates for Mr. Spuck

Published: January 15, 2008

Mr. Spuck was interviewed in October for a half- hour radio program during which he discussed the Spitzer teachers program and science education for station WKQW Oil City, PA.

Mr. Spuck had ten students working on various Spitzer projects during this quarter. Many of them stayed after school two to three days each week to work on their projects. All students planning to present posters at the AAS in Austin, were required to work a minimum of 25 hours on their projects in order to qualify for the trip by early December. After that additional work sessions were planned including the Saturday before and the Saturday after Christmas.

Students attending the January AAS meeting included Danielle Yeager grade 12, Alix Holcomb grade 11, Cale McClintock grade 12, Jen Butchart grade 11, Matt Walentosky grade 11, Nick Kelley grade 12 and Alexis McCool grade 12.

While at the conference the students presented four science posters outlining the current findings of the research they are currently involved in. This includes the identification of unknown T-Tauri stars (stars similar to our sun in their earliest stages of development) in the Witch Head Nebula, identification and classification of unknown galaxies in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, and the major discovery of a large dust ring around WZ Sge's accretion disk which will force astronomers to rethink the structure of accretion disks around other objects such as super massive black holes. In addition to presenting their findings, students had an opportunity to attend various lectures, and visit with other scientists conducting similar research.

In addition to presenting the posters, meeting with scientists, and attending lectures, Mr. Spuck also had an opportunity to meet with the new Spitzer teacher group planning to look at star formation in the Lynds Clouds. It was a very busy, but productive meeting.

We're back from the Jan 2024 AAS and we had a grand time!