Teacher goes to Space Academy

Chelsya Ng Atmadjaja, a seventh grade math teacher in Flushing, had some weight lifted off her shoulders this summer, literally.
Atmadjaja went to space camp for five days with the Honeywell Educators at Space Academy - a scholarship program in Huntsville, AL that brings together international educators from math and science fields. Moreover, during the trip, Atmadjaja had a chance to experience weightlessness and re-enact a moonwalk.
“Now I can see why the astronauts, when they got out into space, it was hard to walk,” Atmadjaja said.
In total, 265 teachers from 21 countries and 43 U.S. states participated in the program, which included land and water survival skills and 50 hours of lab work, and Atmadjaja was grouped with others from Arizona, Minnesota, Texas, Scotland, England, and India.
Atmadjaja, herself, is no stranger to travel. A native of Indonesia, she came to New York in 1999 and went to Hunter College before signing on to teach at J.H.S. 185 three years ago.
Since then she received her master’s degree in education, and this past school year, she taught three math classes - each with at least 20 kids.
On a whim, she applied for the Honeywell program after hearing about it through the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and heard back in March that she had been accepted.
Soon after, teachers from around the world began e-mailing one another to get acquainted before meeting at the camp on June 18.
“We got to know the teachers from other countries and exchange experiences and ideas. Teamwork was very important,” Atmadjaja said.
While at camp, the group applied the mathematical order of operations to every day life and built homemade rockets with soda bottles, bicycle pumps and water.
“I’ve never had that kind of experience in my whole life,” Atmadjaja, 32, gushed, saying that she hoped to re-create the rocket with her classroom. “It was a very safe experience, very easy, and yet it was a very exciting experience.”
In addition, she hopes to connect her kids with an actual astronaut for a video-chat and apply for Honeywell’s advanced space program for teachers.
“I’m not sure how many years it’s going to take to get into it, but I’m going to try,” she said.
The entire experience left Atmadjaja with a feeling of gratitude that she leads classes in the United States and not overseas.
“We are very fortunate here in the United States to be able to do experiments,” she said. “Sometimes we take that for granted.”