CharmingTheSnake

• How was Python used in the research process?
  • Data organization
  • Took all our data from APT and converted it into tables
    • All the data gathered from the sources was converted into manageable charts
    • A single table with all the bands of photometry - Cull and Merge
    • Band merging
  • Useful for implementing multiple applications
    • Can do multiple steps/processes in one programs
  • Used for making graphs - FWHM
  • Used to create regions files

• Student affective responses to learning Python
  • It challenged me to be more creative (coming up with ways to organize data) and detail oriented (coding so that the program runs)
  • It was easy at first with simple coding for quick results, but then it got a bit more arduous as we had to recall more code and take on larger projects with more steps. That said, it was ultimately achievable and the challenges made for a fun experience.
  • I liked the idea of being able to streamline our research process.
  • It was great to learn coding by doing as a part of an ongoing project instead of learning through made up examples.

• Applications for high school-level research
  • Can create and provide visual examples of experiments
    • Python (Visual Python)
  • Organizing large pools of data (perhaps from databases)
    • Using organized data to create visually appealing graphs and charts
  • Sorting data so that it is easily accessible and easy to read
  • To help check math work
    • Changes to calculations take only seconds to change within a program
  • Can make formulas to aid any mathematical needs
  • To combine multiple pools of data
  • Write a program to do a repetitive task
  • Programming can be used in almost any class where I student needs to cull, sort, and analyze a large pool of data

• Advice & Recommendations for teachers & policy makers
  • Start small (“Hello World”, Basic Math Operations)
  • Code Academy
  • Learn libraries specific to what you are doing (SciPy, NumPy, Visual)
  • Integration of programming into all STEM-based classes
  • Learn Excel programming if nothing else