Mirwat Shamshad

I am Mirwat Shamshad, currently serving as an educator and teaching physics to High School girls in Islamabad. My story revolves around rethinking and reimagining science for myself and in doing so how I am making my bit count towards a STEM future for girls in my part of the world.
I share the vision of Dr Abdus Slam that ‘Scientific thought and its creation is the common and shared heritage of mankind”; this translates that knowledge of science sees no boundaries, no colour , no race and hence no gender. We are a resource constrained country where education in general and STEM in particular receives a very meager mention in state budget. Our teaching cadre remains highly underpaid and least influential. The science usually remains at the back seat. The situation for girls in STEM domain is much dismal. I consider this a guiding principle of my journey to help girls to seek and share the universal opportunities and pathways in the STEM domains so that they could see themselves for what they really are and what they want to do.
In my own school days and even today, I found that science is taught in my country in the most orthodox way which makes learning STEM least exciting to pursue it as a career. This excruciating pain of not doing science for what it really has set me on very different trajectory.
In order to foster a spirit of scientific thought and learning, I have been following a multiple pronged strategy that is more evolutionary and organic in nature as it has been primarily shaped by the year-on-year experiences that continued to roll out on much of their own accord.
Much of the celebrations and activities at school level are customary and stereotypical, where the primary aim of management “appears to be checking off items from an academic calendar TO-DO-LIST” as handed down by some top curriculum experts.
I aim to line up the activities that not only focus on covering the set syllabus but also helps to uncover the working principles and laws of science.
The first area I targeted was creating an audience for Science among our student body by engaging some of the prominent figures; researchers and science communicators to come to our school and talk to girls about some real science that is happening around the world. There had been talks on Gravitational Waves, Particles Physics and Space Explorations.
Astronomy has always been at my heart. In order to introduce my students to this age old passion of humankind of star gazing, I started looking around for all possible venues to explore this domain I connected to an amateur astronomical society in Pakistan to conduct the solar observation and night sky gazing sessions. This was a very first experience for many of my students. For many girls, having no access to a telescope and very few astronomical societies around, this is more like a dream come true. The excitement of actually viewing the rings of Saturn or the craters of moon, or the moons of Jupiter is something I only witnessed during our star parties. To create astronomy awareness to a wider audience I conducted an educational outreach program ‘Introduction to Astronomy’ at an orphanage for under privileged children, both boys and girls, who lost a parent during “War on Terror” in the tribal areas of Pakistan. It was a four weeklong course in which my students also participated as volunteers. We utilized the Harvard Smithsonian Microobservatory’s Robotic Telescope to introduce students to astroimaging. The students subsequently showcased their astroimaging work in an exhibition. Providing learning opportunities outside the classroom environment has always been an integral part of my strategy. I have collaborated with the research institutes and universities. In this quest for rethinking and reimagining a future for my students, I collaborate with the premium research institute “National Center for Physics” Islamabad .School of Natural Science at NUST I had always believe to make learning a fun thing and nothing could beat the learning value when it comes to visiting places where the real application of physics is happening in real time like a hydro power project at Ghazi Brotha and Pakistan aeronautical complex that I took my students to.
Hands on and activity-based learnings had remained my main approach of engaging my students. I have helped students showcase their work during Physics Fest, World Space Week and Active Learning Optics sessions. All these activities on small budget using basic resources available at hand.
I collaborated with two international teachers, one from Serbia and the other from UK to have a physics pen pals educational exchange program. it is an initiative where physics students learn the best practices in physics classes by making physics pen pals and sharing post cards.
During the COVID-19 scenario, we switched to an online platform making best use of the resources accessible online. We undertook an Exoplanet Lab project with the objective of searching for a planet outside our own solar system. We were able to successfully detect HATP3, a Jupiter sized gas giant in Ursa Major constellation. We also celebrated International Day of Light 2020 in collaboration with JPL scientist Dr Sona Hosseini and ICTP, Italy.
In order to keep my abreast to the cutting-edge research both in the domains of physics and education, I have continued to take part in National and International programs. I represented Pakistan in “International Teacher’s Week, 2019” at CERN. I also participated in “Active Learning Of Optics and Photonics Workshop” at Indonesia and “Winter School Of Quantum Optics And Photonics” at ICTP, Italy. This not only provided me to learn about firsthand cutting-edge research but was also instrumental in becoming part of International network collaborating to promote science and introducing the field of Quantum Information to my students.
At present I am collaborating with a team at a western origin Light Source Synchrotron to use their facility to work on project along with my student group.
I aim to inspire the young girls and help them to foresee and craft their own future and to seek equal careers opportunities in STEM domains.