Inspire students with LGBTQ+ STEM activities
The lives and contributions of LGBTQ+ people in STEM have not always been visible or celebrated. This month, highlight and honor those innovators whose work has made a huge impact on the world, and pair them with hands-on STEM activities and explorations.
Florence Nightingale (1858)
Florence Nightingale is considered the founder of modern nursing, helping save countless lives by insisting on good hygiene and treating patients with dignity. She was also an advocate for record-keeping, collecting extensive data to prove that poor conditions in hospitals were killing soldiers. She became the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society in 1858.
Show how statistics are important.
Describe Data Using Statistics Gizmo
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale
George Washington Carver (1916)
An innovative agricultural scientist, researcher, and environmentalist, George Washington Carver taught southern U.S. farmers to use crop rotation to restore the nutrients in the soil depleted by years of growing cotton. He also invented over 300 peanut-based products, including milk, and wrote a bulletin titled “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption” in 1916.
Help a strawberry farmer with his crops.
Fruit Production and the Environment STEM Case
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver
Sara Josephine Baker (1917)
In 1917, Sara Josephine Baker became the first woman in the United States to receive a doctorate in public health. As the first director of New York’s Bureau of Child Hygiene, she nearly halved the child mortality rate and helped curb a typhoid outbreak in that city as well by helping identify the super-spreader.
Learn how to stop the spread of diseases!
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Josephine_Baker
Alan Turing (1939)
One of the world’s most famous mathematicians and cryptographers, Alan Turing invented the bombe machines that broke Nazi codes during World War II. He is often considered the father of modern computing. In addition to shortening World War II, he also theorized about Artificial Intelligence and created the Turing Test to determine whether a computer can think.
Program a robot and send it on its way.
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
Sally Ride (1983)
Sally Ride broke down barriers and achieved amazing heights as the first female American astronaut. She joined NASA in 1983, the first year women were selected to join space missions. She went on to found Sally Ride Science, a foundation dedicated to promoting learning and careers in STEM. She also posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Explore the solar system with Gizmos!
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride
Ben Barres (1993)
Ben Barres was a neuroscientist who did groundbreaking work on brain cells known as glia and their possible relation to diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, multiple sclerosis, and glaucoma. Barres received his Ph.D.in neurobiology in 1990 and joined Stanford University’s department of neurobiology as an assistant professor in 1993, becoming chairman of the department in 2008.
Explore a wide variety of cells, from bacteria to human neurons.
Photo credit: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08964-1
Tim Cook (2011)
Tim Cook joined Apple in March 1998 as a senior vice president for worldwide operations, and was made the chief executive in 2011, prior to Steve Jobs' death in October of that year. Cook has advocated for the political reformation of international and domestic surveillance, cybersecurity, American manufacturing, and environmental preservation.
Learn how to detect and analyze water pollution.
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook
Nergis Mavalvala (2014)
Mavalvala was born in Lahore, Pakistan before moving to the United States to study physics at Wellesley College and later earned her Ph.D.in Physics at M.I.T. In 2015, Mavalvala made history as one of the first scientists to observe gravitational waves, previously unproven “ripples” in time-space. Due to her outstanding contributions to science, Malvalvala was honored with the LGBTQ Science of the Year award.
Explore ground-breaking physics concepts like Nergis Mavalvala!
Photo credit: https://physics.mit.edu/news/astrophysicist-nergis-mavalvala-90-is-wellesleys-2022-commencement-speaker/
Vivienne Ming (2017)
Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author. In 2017, she cofounded Socos Labs to combine her varied work with that of other creative experts and expand their impact on global policy issues, both inside companies and throughout our communities. Her inventions include technology that helps separated families reunite, treat diabetes, and support individuals with bipolar disorder.
Learn how to treat diabetes with Gizmos!
Photo credit: https://tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=526395
Ron Buckmire (2020)
Ron Buckmire was born in Grenada and spent the majority of his childhood in the United States until his family moved to Barbados when he was 11. He moved back to the US for college after he completed high school in the Caribbean. Buckmire has 20+ years of experience teaching courses primarily in applied mathematics and conducting research in numerical analysis and mathematical modeling, which is valuable in his job at the National Science Foundation (he worked there until 2018). He co-founded Specta, an association supporting LGBTQ mathematicians. In 2020, Buckmire was named VP for equity, diversity, and inclusion for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
Looking for interactive, engaging ways to teach math?
Jane Rigby (2024)
Jane Rigby is an astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and serves as a Senior Project Scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope. Rigby’s accomplishments include delivering a TED talk on space telescopes in 2011 and co-founding the American Astronomical Society Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy. Additionally, Rigby has contributed to TEMPLATES, a project that is expected to spatially resolve star formation. In 2024, Jane Rigby was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her scientific leadership advocacy for inclusion.
Explore space concepts like Jane Rigby!
Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Rigby_%28astrophysicist%29
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