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CURRENT TEAMS
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NITARP Program Components
The main program components involve multiple trips for which NITARP
pays and a commitment from the teachers to educate others about their
experiences, both of which are conducted over at minimum of 2 years.
The specific program components are:
- Attending a NITARP workshop held at a January meeting of
the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting, for example,
Seattle, WA, in January 2011. The purpose of this workshop (held the
Sunday before the AAS meeting) is to learn about the basics of the
NASA archives to be used, including learning about infrared light, to
meet your team, meet your scientist, and define the research project
to be conducted. The reason for attending the AAS meeting (and not
just returning home immediately after the workshop) is to understand
how AAS meetings work and to learn about current astronomy research;
the time will also be spent continuing to work with your team to
define your project. Your project may be something that you or another
teacher in your group initiates, or it may be something that your
scientist mentor suggests, or some combination of the two; your team
will discuss it in person. For example, the 2011 AAS meeting starts
the evening of Sunday January 9, 2011 and goes through Thursday
January 13. Our NITARP workshop occurs Sunday, January 9. You are
expected to attend the AAS from Sunday January 9 -- Tuesday January
11, 2011. Travel would then be conducted on Saturday January 8th,
returning Wednesday the 5th or Thursday the 6th.
- Working long distance with each other on a
research program that uses data from Spitzer, IRSA, NED, and/or NStED,
in conjunction with NOAO and NASA scientists, using telephone
conferences (telecons) and internet-based resources such as email and
a wiki (where everyone with an account on the system can edit pages,
post images or proposal drafts, ask and answer questions, etc.).
- Meeting for 3 days in Pasadena, California at
Caltech (specifically IPAC and the SSC) to work on the data and to
understand the science process. Each team will decide when to meet
(dates TBD, probably -- but not necessarily -- in the Summer of 2011).
This program is primarily for teachers, but in order to support your
educational efforts, you may have the opportunity to bring up to 2
students per teacher to IPAC. The students must be heavily involved in
the project; more details will be available to the teachers in the
program.
- Attending the next January AAS meeting (next is
in Austin, TX in January 2012) to present results of your
project, both from a scientific and educational perspective.
Again, you may have the opportunity to bring up to 2 students per
teacher to the AAS. Travel costs associated with these meetings (trip
to AAS meeting to get started, trip to IPAC to work on project, and
trip to AAS to present project results), within reason, are covered by
NITARP.
- Serving as NASA/NITARP ambassadors who give 12
hours' worth of professional development workshops in their home
school districts. Each teacher will be expected to give the equivalent
in hours of 3 half-day professional development workshops in their
district, or neighboring school districts, and at least 3 talks on the
project (e.g., local, state, regional, or national teacher
conferences) over the first 2 years of your time in the program. The
professional development workshops will focus on teaching about
infrared astronomy and may use infrared teaching kits that we will
provide to you. These kits will have infrared teaching videos, teacher
guides, such as the Invisible Universe GEMS guide, other teaching
materials kits such as the NASA SOFIA project infrared kit, plus
additional teaching tools such as the Newport infrared-sensing
cards.
- Serving as mentor teachers in the community of NITARP
teachers. The first year that you are in NITARP, you spend
most of your program time learning about infrared, Spitzer, IRSA, NED,
NStED, the relevant software, the relevant science, etc. As a "first
year" NITARP teacher, you attend an AAS meeting and a meeting at IPAC
to further these goals. Your second year commences with the second AAS
meeting, and extends at least through the end of that school year. As
a "second year" NITARP teacher, you are more experienced and spend
most of your program time working with your students on the project,
conducting professional development workshops, and interacting with
other teams, e.g., on the NITARP wiki. Since, as a second year
teacher, you are attending your second AAS meeting at the same time as
it is anticipated that new first year teachers will be attending their
first meeting, explicit mentoring of these new teachers is encouraged.
Third year and later teachers, known as "NITARP alumni teachers," are
still encouraged to be part of the NITARP community. (All of the
previous Spitzer teachers are now regarded as alumni teachers.) Alumni
teachers may be asked to join new teams to help mentor the new
teachers. Some funding may be available to bring alumni teachers (even
those not explicitly part of new teams) to subsequent AAS meetings.
Some funding and opportunities may be available for additional ground-
or space-based follow-up observations to further investigate questions
raised by your research project. Additional activities are planned to
create a sense of community among all alumni teachers; some alumni
teachers may be asked to help lead these activities.
- [NB: Teachers are asked to submit monthly reports to us at IPAC
describing project-related activities (workshops, etc.).]
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