Implementation of ‘STEAMazing Women’ (SoI-HU-554)
Author: Tóthné Jónás, a teacher of English as a foreign language
School/Organization: Kisvárdai Bessenyei György Gimnázium és Kollégium
Female scientist deserve fame too
I chose Dalia’s LS because of its topic namely the importance and position of women in science in the past and today. I used the LS in an English lesson (as a foreign language). My students are 15-16. There were 20 students in the class. They learnt about famous Hungarian inventors last year also in my English class. In addition, they gathered information about some scientists on Chemistry and Biology lessons. These scientists who they heard about were mainly males. There was an exception, in one of their Chemistry books the story of Marie Curie is even mentioned and I wanted to broaden their knowledge.
Introduction & discussion
I asked my students to write what profession they plan to do in the future on a piece of paper. Boys got a blue piece of paper and girls a pink one. The number of boys and girls in the class is quite balanced.
We collected the papers and put the jobs in groups. We had categories like arts, business, education, law, science and technology. In the end, it turned out that boys preferred jobs connected to science. We discussed what the reason of it is.
Make groups and explore
I cut 4 photos into 5 parts. Each student got a puzzle. They had to find the other 4 parts of the photo and put that together. That 5 students worked in a group in the rest of the project. The photo also decided which Europeana resource they would work on. I embedded the links into their Padlet worksheet. They read the blog and each group had to write the story of the scientist in a few sentences. After finishing their their short articles they were asked to read and comment on each-others posts.
Women of science in the21st century
In the final part of the project I wanted to emphasise that woman can achieve appreciation today.
I read out sentences about the life of Katalin Karikó one after the other. They had to find out whom I was describing. First I started with information which did not reveal much. The more sentences I read the closer they got to the solution.
After finding out her identity, each group created a fakebook profile of Katalin Karikó. To do this, they had to search for information on her life and career.
Stand out for yourself
As a result, students concluded that if they are good in something they can achieve a lot but sometimes they have to stand out for themselves. They got to no women scientists and learnt to use new platforms like Padlet and Fakebook.
In the beginning they could mention only one female scientists, but in the end they collected information about at least 5 female scientists.
You always learn something new.
I chose this LS, because I liked the topic. Photos from Europeana helped to make the stories more realistic. Students could believe that it really happened when they read the text on a library’s website. As a teacher of a foreign language it is great, that I can use Europeana resources written in English. I would encourage educators who are thinking about using arts and science digital heritage as they can find material in dealing with science in a wide range. We do not have to be experts of science to draw our students’ attention to the importance of this field. As a teacher of a foreign language I concentrate on topics like environmental problems, green energy as students should talk about these topics in English. I found many other Europeana resources that could have been used when implementing the LS but as the writer gave the links and I found the material very good, I mainly used those resources. I search only for photos to make the puzzles.
I found this story of implementation interesting. It is well built, easy to follow. Students liked the topic and were surprised how little we know about women scientists.
The original learning scenario: https://teachwitheuropeana.eun.org/learning-scenarios/steamazing-women-en-cur-648/ . The author: Dalia Kager
Working on the task:
One of the results:
Link to the learning scenario implemented: https://teachwitheuropeana.eun.org/learning-scenarios/steamazing-women-en-cur-648/
Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.
CC BY-SA 4.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Fortepan.