Besides taking classes, doing astrophysics research, and learning coding and data science, students at YSPA will have the opportunities to participate in other fun enrichment activities. Several times during the program, we’ll take a day off to do some kind of “one-day” lab, such as developing an instrument payload to study the upper atmosphere of the earth and then launching it to the edge of space with a helium weather balloon. Another “one-day” project will involve designing solar spectroscopes, which we will then build using 3D printers. We’ll also do a few other short projects, such as studying the chromosphere of the Sun, making color images of nebulae, and designing rockets to reach a specific altitude.
Recovering the high-altitude balloon payload in 2017
In addition to the YSPA curriculum courses taught classes by our faculty, we will have several guest lectures by a diverse group of Yale scientists about their research in variety of disciplines. Some of these guest lectures will be followed by tours of some of the lab facilities at Yale. We will have an official tour of the Yale campus highlighting the science and engineering research facilities, and we’ll will also host a workshop on college application essay writing.
Yale Physics Professor Sarah Demers talks with students about the Standard Model of Particle Physics in the planetarium.
Every Tuesday night at the Leitner Planetarium is a public night, when we offer public planetarium shows and set up several small telescopes for public viewing of interesting celestial objects. YSPA students will have the opportunity to participate in these public outreach nights and share their interest in astronomy and their summer research with visitors from the Yale and New Haven communities.
Each week we will also have a full day or half-day field trip off campus. These trips are intended to be fun and recreational. These are some of the field trips planned for 2023:
- A Day in New York: American Museum of Natural History (and Hayden Planetarium), Central Park, Met Museum of Art
- A geology hike in Sleeping Giant State Park
- Yale Outdoor Recreation Center (near East Lyme, CT, shown in the photo above) for recreation and stargazing
- Yale Art Museum
- Peabody Museum of Natural History
In addition to all of these field trips, we will schedule other fun activities on campus, such as:
- Frisbee and soccer games
- Rock climbing at the nearby City Climb gym
- Movie nights in the planetarium
- Late night board games
- An authentic New England contra dance
- Gardening at the nearby Yale Farm and enjoying pizza from their wood-fired pizza oven
- A talent show at the end of the program (there will be a piano and a guitar at the observatory for students to use, and students are also welcome to bring their own instruments)
Finally, on the last day program and after our mini-conference, we’ll have a special closing dinner and closing exercises.
Campfire and smores at the Yale Lake