Project 4A: Women in Science

Did you know that the first computer programmer was a woman, Ada Lovelace, that the discovery of DNA was largely due to Rosalind Franklin’s work, or that as early as ancient Egypt Hypatia was one of the most well-known mathematicians and philosophers? Do the names Katherine Johnson, Ann Tsukamoto, Chien-Shiung Wu, Mileva Maric, Jane Goodall, and Marie Curie ring a bell? Well, probably at least some do. All of the above are famous female scientists that students in 4A chose to do research on. After finding out that googling “Famous scientist” resulted in exclusively male faces looking at you, the focus for this project was on female scientists and their work, inventions, and discoveries.

After conducting some initial research in their chemistry lessons, students came up with brilliant ideas on how to present ‘their’ scientist. The results of research and project work, which ranged from informative posters to photoshopped pictures to monkey cakes to posing as Marie Curie, were handed in for the creative competition (“Kreativwettbewerb”) initiated by the STEM Fatale organization (http://stem-fatale.com/). Each of the submissions also included a short text that was written during students’ German lessons. Results of this competition are still pending.

Find below the students’ works and more information on the above-mentioned scientists. The project took place between February 11 (international day for women and girls in science) and March 8, 2022 (international women’s day). If you are interested in more famous female chemists, check out this website: https://www.compoundchem.com/2022/03/08/iwd2022/