March – the month of women in the history of science (LS-HR-102)

The problem of equal opportunities

The history of science is full of men. On the other hand, women in science were very rare because they did not have equal opportunities for education. Therefore, with this learning scenario, we aim to examine the life and legacy of several females in the history of science, and how it was possible for them to educate themselves and work in their time, from Hypatia to Valentina Tereshkova.

This learning scenario, created by Josip Kličinović (Croatia), combines Europeana Collections, other online sources, creating and sharing digital materials, and soft skills (critical thinking, collaborative work, evaluation, self-evaluation…). Josip has already implemented it in the 2nd year of secondary school (15 years old), in an ICT class. Although it is an integration of topics from various other subjects (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history), but it can be introduced with students age 12-18.

The legacy of women in science

The main aims of this learning scenario are to:

• Familiarize students with the great achievements and contributions of women in science in history;
• Learn how to search for relevant information on Europeana Collections, Wikipedia, or some similar database;
• Find out how to search, create and share digital materials and posters;
• Develop collaborative working skills (offline and online), and how to give each other feedback.

This learning scenario can be divided into three main parts:

1. Learning how to search for relevant information, create and share digital materials, and work collaboratively in a team. For example, students do research about scientists women, their life and legacy; then, they create a quiz using Kahoot, LearningApps, and ClassTools.net. Later, pupils also have to create a poster, using the open-source professional vector graphics editor Inkscape.
2. Teamwork: students learn how to use cloud-based services and how to work collaboratively using shared online documents to gather information about women in science.
3. Assessment, (peer) evaluation and self-evaluation: each group has to present “their” scientist and their poster. Afterwards, students’ knowledge is tested using LearningApps or Kahoot.

• 

• 

Josip’s scenario also includes his experience of implementing it with his students. Why not implement it yourself and see whether your experiences are similar?

Would you like to know more about this learning scenario? You can download it below:

Did you find this learning scenario interesting? You might also like:

• Take the Quiz: How much do you know about women who pioneered Europe?
• The Powerful Women in Europe
• Changing role of women in early 20th century

CC BY 1.0 –The featured image used to illustrate this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution. It has been provided by the Wellcome Collection. It has been resized and labelled to illustrate this article. To find the original image click here.