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Summer 2011
BRC Team
The BRC team came to visit in July 2011. The core team educators plus
10 students attended. Several IPAC staff members supported the visit;
R. Laher and M. Legassie are both members of the team. The scientist
mentor was Luisa Rebull.
Core teachers:
John Gibbs,
Chelen Johnson (mentor teacher),
Marcella Linahan,
Diane Sartore.
The team at Caltech.
Selected quotes from participants:
- in response to "most important or interesting thing you learned":
- [student] I also never knew about the great observatories. The only one I
knew about was Hubble; now I know the 4 telescopes in space.
- [student] ... my time spent on NITARP was possibly the best thing
that has happened to me so far this year.
- [student] I'm glad I was able to get a 'sneak peek' into my
future if I were to pursue a career in astronomy.
- [student] the trip to JPL!
- In its current form, anyone with moderate computer skills and high
school physics can download, explore, and begin to understand
available data. Student involvement in authentic research is an idea
whose time has come. As a teacher trained in these techniques, I
intend to facilitate investigations by students for many years to
come.
- It was interesting to watch the students work collaboratively,
jumping to each other's side when help was needed.
- More:
- The best thing about the trip was the real world experience. Just
like a real scientist, we worked with others to accomplish our goal by
using the data and making graphs and calculations to find what we
needed. We helped each other out, compared our answers, and learned
from our findings and mistakes.
- Varoujan really brought the history of JPL alive.
- ..this experience definitely changed the way I thought about
astronomy and astronomers. I didn't realize that some of the
calculations and applications were as accessible as they were. I also
didn't realize how collaborative of a job it is...[and it's made up of
many components]
- Astronomers are much different than I expected. ... I didn't
realize how many calculations and math was involved. ... it was a real
eye-opener for how much we used everything we learned in school.
- I used to think astronomy was about looking, and identifying the
stars in constellations. I never thought I would be using a program
like APT or DS9.
- I was very surprised by the camaraderie among the students.
They were not competitive and really worked on helping each other to
understand the material and calculations.
- I really enjoyed
working with the teachers. It was important to help each other out and
realize that you are going to make mistakes...
- I never realized how much computer programming is done in
Astronomy. I think this will help me reach out to students who might
not be interested in "science." These students may not realize that
their programming skills are vital for analyzing astronomical data.
- real astronomy requires patience, persistence, and an imagination.
- Real astronomy is making little mistakes that cause you to check
all the data again.
- Real astronomy involves working as a team to find an answer.
- I thought it was just about looking at the sky and going, "Oh,
look. There's a new star." t's not like that at all. There's a lot
more work that goes into it from looking at the pictures to crunching
the numbers to researching previous projects to see if what they are
finding is right.
- Real astronomy seems like a lot more analyzing data and images
than actually observing the sky directly
- there is not a right answer from the back of the book. That "what
'you' discover" is valid as long as you follow the proper techniques
and continually double and triple check what you are doing with the
others in the team.
Period Pontificators Team
The Period Pontificators team came to visit in August 2011. The core
team educators plus 3 students attended. The scientist mentors were
Steve Howell (Ames) and David Ciardi.
Core teachers:
John Blackwell (mentor teacher),
Stacy DeVeau,
Debbie Edwards,
Mike Ford.
The team at JPL.
Selected quotes from participants:
- in response to "most important or interesting thing you learned":
- using spacecraft data is more difficult than earth based. ...I'm used
to IRAF..
- I am more confident in my ability to process more data and take on
the task of trying to involve students at my school back home.
- I was delighted to discover several stars that I had no knowledge
of, that rotated, pulsated, eclipsed (or a combination of [these])
- More:
- people all see data differently and get excited about different
things. This makes the group stronger.
- kept thinking about how much I couldn't wait to share all I was
learning with my Astronomy students this coming school year.
- [Real astronomy is] handling huge chunks of data and learning how
to mine this information from sets so large that it is simply mind
boggling. [...]many people are not aware of this, notably teachers in
the trenches. They are teaching the science not as a process, but as a
set of background material that acts as a starting point for
conversation. The actual DOING of the science is a foreign thing to
most teachers. This project is exactly why we are doing what we are
doing! We want to convey what science is...
- my favorite thing about the trip was our visit to JPL
- The 'a-ha' moments at the conclusion of our analyses was
unexpected [in that it was so soon].
Team Red Shift
The TRS team came to visit in August 2011. The core team educators
attended, plus 5 students. The scientist mentor was Varoujan Gorjian.
Core teachers:
Merrill Butler,
Adam Keeton,
Shefali Mehta,
Tim Spuck (mentor teacher).
Most of the team at Caltech.
Selected quotes from participants:
- ...analyzing images doesn't seem that difficult anymore.
- ...the best part about the trip was working for four straight
days on a concept that few people either understand or are passionate
about. [..]it was really rejuvenating to come out here and dive into
actual astronomical research.
- I actually felt like I was able to accomplish something that
would have some meaning to the scientific community..
- I was really surprised by how much astronomers need to know about
writing programs and fixing software when it doesn't 'play nice'.
I think this more than anything else surprised me about what real
astronomy is and what it is about.
- What would be surprising to me is if everything would have gone
according to plan. That just doesn't happen in science. So when bugs
came up in the data analysis process, it felt very normal.
- It's always great to see the progress made by the teachers and
students. It's just so very noticable when you compare the
conversations you have with them on the first day as compared to the
last day.
- When I presented the project to my School Board, they were really
excited about the research and that I would be involving students the
entire way.
- It was very apparent to me that we did "real astronomy" all week
and all year for that matter.
- [...]we actually downloaded data, analyzed it, charted it, and
then potentially found our first galaxy cluster. What an incredible
feeling to be right there at the edge of discovery!
- [The best thing about the trip was that] there are only a handful
of people at home that I can speak to about astronomy, physics, and the
like, so I was absolutely thrilled by the people I got to meet. Being
surrounded by people at least as intelligent and oftentimes far more
so is quite the exhilerating experience.
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