The HistoryMakers® ScienceMaker Toolkit Table of Contents 1 2 3 The HistoryMakers® ScienceMakers Toolkit Dear ScienceMakers Toolkit Users: In August of 2009, The HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral history archive, was awarded a $2.3 million three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to create ScienceMakers, an innovative African American media and education initiative focused on capturing and preserving the stories of African Americans in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) professions. The HistoryMakers is a national 501(c)(3) non-profit educational institution founded in 1999 committed to preserving, developing and providing easy access to an internationally recognized archival collection of thousands of African American video oral histories. Many are unaware of the contributions of African Americans in the STEM professions. This lack of knowledge adversely affects our youth and their perceptions of the STEM professions. ScienceMakers will disseminate the stories of STEM professionals to youth and adult audiences through the internet, public programs and innovative uses of new technologies. We see the lives of these scientists and their careers as a gateway to greater numbers of youth pursuing STEM careers. We also hope that it will result in an increased interest and awareness of the accomplishments of African American scientists. This 2010 ScienceMakers Toolkit is intended to be a career and educational resource and features well-known African American scientists like Lloyd Ferguson of the University of California, Berkeley and Neil deGrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Others include James West, co-inventor of the electret microphone, and Lisa Jackson, administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Please send all comments, questions and suggestions to [email protected]. Thank you for your support of STEM education. We hope you enjoy the ScienceMakers Toolkit. Read on and spread the word! Sincerely, Julieanna Richardson Founder & Executive Director The HistoryMakers 1900 S. Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60616 4 Introduction The HistoryMakers® ScienceMaker Toolkit Purpose & How to Use This Toolkit What is STEM? STEM is an acronym for: Science Technology Engineering Mathematics What is the ScienceMakers Mission? The mission of The HistoryMakers’ ScienceMakers initiative is to provide youth and adults with: 1. Exposure to successful African American STEM scientists as role models; 2. Increased knowledge about African American contributions to the STEM professions; 3. Increased information on STEM-related careers; 4. Increased awareness of STEM concepts and STEM career opportunities; 5. Improved 21st century learning skills; and 6. Inspiration for lifelong interest in science and in the STEM professions. What Is A ScienceMaker? A ScienceMaker is: • African American by descent. • A person who by his/her own accomplishments has made significant contributions to research, education or some other aspect of a STEM discipline. The Purpose The ScienceMakers Toolkit is designed to be a resource; it is not a substitute for formal science curriculum, but rather a career resource and biographical guide to African American scientists. How to Use the ScienceMakers Toolkit There are 73 ScienceMakers featured in this Toolkit. The Toolkit is divided into eight sections including Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Science, Engineering, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, and Administration and Education. Each section contains several ScienceMaker Spotlights as well as five classroom activities. 5 An Index of Activities is included with each section as well as where they came from. Activities indicated with “1” are from ScienceBuddies.org, a comprehensive resource for science experiments and Introduction projects. Those indicated with “2” are from Computer Science Unplugged, a resource to learn about computer science without the use of a computer. The introduction page for each section features a STEM field as well as possible career choices for that field. It also lists specific ScienceMakers by career and affiliation. With each name, the subjects covered in the ScienceMaker Spotlight’s questions provide topics for discussion purposes. Following each STEM introduction page are photographs related to that STEM field. The photographs are intended to illustrate the STEM field with events or objects with which students are familiar, and they can be used at the instructor’s discretion. The ScienceMaker Spotlight highlights each ScienceMaker’s life and career. Each Spotlight page contains: • Biography Table • A ScienceMaker Biography • Discussion Questions • Glossary The Biography Table appears at the beginning of each Spotlight page. It provides basic biographical information on each ScienceMaker. Some of the discussion questions directly relate to the biography table. For example, students can complete a map activity in which they locate all the ScienceMakers’ birthplaces on a map and determine how far each is from their own location. Students can also map a ScienceMaker’s educational path. The Biography provides important information on each ScienceMaker’s life and professional development. The Discussion Questions are divided into two categories: • About the ScienceMaker relates to the ScienceMaker’s personal life. The first three questions ask the student to evaluate his/her life in comparison to the ScienceMaker’s and think about the similarities and differences. The last question relates to the oral history process and asks the student to think about what questions they would ask the scientist. • About the subject matter relates to the ScienceMaker’s field of study, his or her career, or historically relevant subjects. The first two questions are designed to assess the current level of student knowledge. For example, asking “What do you think a physicist does?” allows the instructor to evaluate existing knowledge and the knowledge gained from the discussion. The Glossary provides definitions for: • Scientific terms (i.e. electron) • STEM organizations (i.e. National Science Foundation) • STEM careers (i.e. intern, tenured) • Important people in science (i.e. Percy Julian) 6 Introduction Glossary terms are underlined in each biography. Definitions, for the most part, are written at a middle to high school level. The Activities, based on the general field of study, provide hands-on demonstrations that introduce students to new STEM fields. Each activity lists an appropriate grade level for the experiment as well as its applicable National Science Content Standard. Each objective is bolded for a quick glance. In the back of your Toolkit, you will find: • ScienceMakers Oral History Guidelines • ScienceMakers YouTube Oral History Contest Guidelines • ScienceMakers Media Guide • National Science Content Standards • A list of online resources relating to the material in this Toolkit 7 The HistoryMakers® ScienceMaker Toolkit Index of Activities Index Section Activity Grade Level Pg. Burning Through Money 9-12 55 Chlorofluorocarbon Attack 7-9 56 Chemistry Make Your Own Bouncy Ball 9-12 59 Modeling With Molecules 8-12 61 Putting Out A Fire… With Thin Air 5-9 64 Count the Dots2 2+ 96 Colour by Numbers2 2+ 102 Computer Science Card Flip Magic2 4+ 111 Beat The Clock2 2+ 117 The Muddy City2 4+ 122 Air Particles and Air Quality1 K-5 142 Environmental & Going Green With Packing Peanuts 5-8 145 Earth Science Investigating Mechanical Waves of an Earthquake 6+ 148 Mapping the Ocean Floor 4-7 150 The Power of Heat is Right Under Your Feet1 5-7 152 Strong As Eggs 3+ 319 Which Simple Machines Do I Use the Most1 1+ 320 Engineering Newspaper Tower 4-6 324 Race Your Marbles To Determine A Liquid’s Viscosity1 7-9 325 Paper Chromatography1 4-7 332 Biomagnification 3-6 181 DNA Candy 7-9 183 Life Sciences Marshmallow Meiosis 8-12 184 Fruit Power 7-12 187 Growing Mold 2+ 188 Pick A Card, Any Card1 K+ 280 Tiling with Spidrons1 10-12 284 Mathematics What is the Average Height in Your Classroom 3+ 288 Birthday Paradox1 5-7 290 Vector Chess 8+ 292 Coke v. Diet Coke 4+ 248 Distance and Constant Acceleration1 6-8 249 Physics Modeling the Elementary Particles of an Atom 8+ 253 How the Strength of a Magnet Varies With Temperature1 6-8 256 Measuring the Speed of Light 7-9 262 8 The HistoryMakers® ScienceMaker Toolkit Index of ScienceMaker Birthdays & Birthplaces Index 9 Index 10 Index 11 Index 12 Chemistry What is Chemistry? Chemistry is the science of matter. Chemicals are found everywhere, from the air we breathe to the dirt under our feet. They can be as close as the dust on the floor or as far away as the matter in distant galaxies. There are many different types of chemists. They include geochemists who study the elemental properties of the earth, food and flavor chemists who examine the chemical makeup of your food, forensic chemists who help solve crimes, and medicinal chemists who develop drugs. Photo credit: Horia Varlan @Flickr 13 If you like chemistry, you may like the careers chosen by these people: ScienceMaker Occupation Location Question Topics Chair of Chemistry Depart- Chemical reactions and the University of Notre Dame Xavier Creary ment Periodic Table of Elements Donald Darensbourg Professor of Chemistry Texas A&M University Carbon dioxide Billy Joe Evans Professor Emeritus University of Michigan Magnetism and chemistry Lloyd Ferguson Professor Emeritus California State University Chemistry of the human body Chlorofluorocarbons and laser Professor