Finding activities for teaching about women in science is tough! First off, women aren’t super prevalent in the science content we teach. Many of the women in science have contributed to science above the curriculum level we teach; they have more modern contributions. Much of the science in our curriculum was discovered or made famous by men.
As far as I am concerned, the contributions of men are just as important as those made by women. I’m not the person who really cares about who discovered what. I instead like to showcase the women in science, to get my students to be inspired. Science isn’t just for boys (and neither is math). Science is for everybody! Taking the time to shine a light on women in science can make it more clear to students that they are scientists as much as the next guy. And considering March is women’s history month, I like to shine my light, right about now.
Here’s a list of some activities for teaching about women in science. This can be adapted for nearly any grade or age, but I’m focused on the upper grades of course.
Read a Book
You’d be amazed the power picture books can have in your classroom, even if that’s a high school classroom. I have a list of picture books I read in my high school classroom to promote growth mindset. They are POWERFUL. The kids like to take the trip down memory lane, sit on the floor in a circle, and oooo and ahhh at the pictures. You can take a trip to your school or local library and check out a book for free. Find one on a scientist that discovered something that will interest your students, or whose discovery (kinda) aligns with your content. Sometimes even just a super scientist (that happens to be a woman) can be just as helpful. I suggest finding four or five, one for each Friday, and read it as a reward for good behavior.
Daily or Weekly Quotes and Responses
You can use your bellringer activity to question kids on content. You totally can, but I prefer to ask some kind of thought provoking question, regardless of content. Sometimes those are “what if” questions with no true answer. Sometimes they are quotes, that I ask students to respond to. You can incorporate quotes into your bellringer rotation quite easily. Do a Google search, find a few quotes that resonate with you and put them on the board. Ask students what they think, and have them write a response to the quote. Again, you can do this daily, weekly or every once in a while. Whatever works for you. I have ten quote posters you can snag for free, right here.
Interactive Biography
This is one of my favorite ways to get my students well versed in the life of a scientist. At this point I’ve created just one, about my favorite scientist, Marie Curie, but I want to create more. Essentially the interactive biography is a guided Google Slides presentation. In the presentation, there are both text and videos to have students learn about the personal life and accomplishments of Marie Curie. It has students answer questions about both her personal life, and the things she discovered. Some of the questions ask for information they’ve learned, and some others ask for their opinions.
March is a bit early for nuclear chemistry for my students, but I like to use it as an introduction to Curie. It is one of my favorite activities for teaching about women in science. I even used it as a 10 point portion of my final exam during the hybrid year.
Documentary or Movie
There are so many good movies and documentaries you can show your students about some female scientists. You can even play a movie like Gravity, where the scientist is a fictional woman. It drives home the point that anybody can be a scientist. I prefer to make reference to real-life women, but the choice is yours. I would also pick something that tied into my content. But again, the chemistry in my curriculum is mostly discovered by men, which makes that hard.
I created a worksheet which outlines Newton’s Laws of Motion being respected and violated in the movie. The worksheet is available in my TPT store and is editable. You can add pertinent questions about women in science as well.
Of course, documentaries and movies can take up a HUGE portion of your class time. And I know not all administrations will accept the fact that movies can be educational. Or you may just have to have a small portion of a movie play instead.
Research Project
Ths one can be tough to manage. I know I really detest projects; especially research projects. You can have groups of students prepare a presentation on a woman in science. Let them pull their information from a variety of places, including documentaries. I’ve also done a few projects where students only had to create ONE SLIDE on a topic, send it to me, and then I compiled a presentation. (I did quite a bit of this when teaching biomes and trophic levels during environmental science.) It worked really well for getting the kids to learn a little bit about a lot of different topics.
This may be easier to swing in terms of teaching about women in science simply because a lot of the women in science have discoveries well beyond the current ability of our high school students. In other words, men discovered all the easy stuff, and women are working hard to discover the tough stuff now!
