Chemistry students study forgotten and overlooked scientists.
For a recent assignment, chemistry students (freshmen and a few sophomores) created informational posters about often-overlooked scientists. “We designed this assignment because we felt that too often textbooks only represent white, straight males as experts in the sciences. We did not believe this was the whole story and wanted our students to help us prove this wrong,” said Mr. Hattori of the assignment he and Ms. Grant devised.
For the assignment, students were tasked with finding a scientist from an underrepresented demographic (no straight, white males), then creating an infographic about that person and the systemic struggles he or she faced in STEM. The scientists did not need to be chemists. In fact, students found experts in many fields, including human genetics, medicine, engineering, and nuclear physics. Most of the scientists the students profiled were women, however the group did include one gay man and a Hispanic-American man. They identified scientists from around the globe.
As is often true with research-based assignments, the library staff, and Ms. Hawkins specifically, provided extensive support for the projects.
Scroll through the photos to see a sampling of the infographics.
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