Atiqa Tirmizi: To Teach is to Learn

This week NYSG is highlighting one of our New York Space Grant (NYSG) Opportunity Grant Recipients, Atiqa Tirmizi. Atiqa is a very dedicated educator, a scientist, and a student living in New York City. NYSG Opportunity Grants are state-wide competitively awarded grants up to $2,000 that support New York primary, secondary, and post-secondary educators and higher education students working on NASA-related projects in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The intent of of these awards is to  attract, recruit and train U.S. citizens, especially women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities, for careers in aerospace science and technology. 

Atiqa utilized her fully funded Opportunity Grant to travel and participate in a week long summer teacher workshop hosted at NASA Wallops Facility in Virginia. Atiqa participated in the Wallops Rocket Academy for Teachers (WRATS). The workshop was for educators to gain experience in technical flight for rockets that reinforced science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). WRATS provided Atiqa hands-on rocketry experience. 

During the training, Atiqa and other teachering professionals collaborated to build three different types of rockets, created parachutes, and learn about open rocket software. The open rocket software provided training modules on designing, material info, and concept models on the trajectory of the rocket launch. This process took them throught the create, design, and build process necessary to build a successful rocket. At the completion of the workshop, Atiqa and her colleagues were able to launch their rockets. The final launch provided the teachers an opportunity to learn from their design errors and correct them. The team atmosphere, majority which were educators, allowed many of them to bring their experience and expertise to the creation process. Their experience ranged from teaching skills, preparing curriculum, classroom management, and troubleshooting. 

Atiqa mentioned this was a lifetime experience for her to learn from the best in the space industry. The instructors had superb instruction because they were teaching from their experiences. Atiqa was very happy with their best and most promising practices for teaching and educating the future generations. She believes the biggest factor in her knowledge acquisition was from the immense degree of patience towards her and her collagues. She wants to share that same degree of enthusiasm she saw in the WRATS program to her students. Atiqa works with students from diverse backgrounds with various levels of education. It is possible that some of her students may have never heard of the NASA space exploration program. She has made it a priority to make sure all her students are included in educational experiences regardless of obstacles. She is a strong believer that accommodations for every individual is necessary for her to be at her best. She wants to provide the best for vulnerable communities by giving them a valuable educational opportunity to help them forward in their love for STEM. 

 It is known that Atiqa has made it her goal to gain knowledge on various topics and make it accessible for others. She was motivated not only from WRATS, but she has been around family and friends that had difficulty understanding something due to a disability, lack of proper education, or lack of resources. She has found herself in situations where she was unable to attend a science conference or get tutoring because she lacked continuous financial stability. She mentioned NYSG was instrumental in making this trip possible. She thanks NYSG for allowing her to gain valuable experience at WRATS NASA program. The program helped her extend her knowledge and she wants to share this experience with her students for many years to come.