A scientific spotlight on...
We're shining a spotlight on scientists who deserve recognition and have positively impacted the way that we live today.
Below you can find free booklets to download for each of our chosen scientists. Within these booklets you can explore key facts about our chosen scientist, fun activities and discussion starters for your students.
World Hearing Day: John Ambrose Fleming
World Hearing Day is celebrated in March in the UK. John Ambrose Fleming was a British electrical engineer and inventor born in 1849. He was born with a hearing impairment which worsened with age, this started to affect his work as he could not hear others in discussions. Rather than let this challenge stand in his way, Fleming took an assistant with him to meetings to take notes. This allowed him to follow the discussions and to thoroughly challenge any points he wanted to argue against.
Fleming achieved amazing things and did not let his hearing impairment stop him. He used his engineering skills to create a device to assist his hearing, enabling him to continue his work with others, and he invented world changing technology.
Find out more about Fleming by downloading the information booklet and answer sheet.
Black History Month: Shirley Ann Jackson
October in the UK is dedicated to Black History Month. It's a month to remember and understand black achievements and histories. That's why we're shining a spotlight on black scientists who deserve recognition and have positively impacted the way that we live today.
Our scientific spotlight for Black History Month is dedicated to Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson.
Shirley is an American physicist and eighteenth president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She was fascinated with science from a young age, studying the circadian rhythm of honeybees that she captured from her garden as a child. Shirley was top of her class at school and as a result she earned herself a place at Massachusetts Insitiute of Technology (MIT), she was one of only a few black students. She tried to join her fellow female classmates in the study room and at lunch, but they rejected her. This made Shirley feel very isolated, but she was determined to do well in her studies despite this treatment.
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Pride Month: Neena Schwartz
Every year in June the world celebrates Pride month: a month dedicated to celebrating the LGBTQ+ communities all around the globe.
Our scientific spotlight for Pride Month is dedicated to American endocrinologist, feminist and LGBTQ+ advocate, Neena Schwartz.
In 1971, Neena was the first president and organiser of Association for Women in Science (AWIS), which advocates for an increase in the number of women in senior academic positions within science. She was also president of the Society for the Study of Reproduction and the co-founder of Women in Endocrinology.
To document her experience working as a female scientist, Schwartz wrote a memoir called ‘A Lab of My Own’. She also used it as an opportunity to discuss her relationship with her sexuality. In the book she came out as lesbian and hoped that her work, and her book, would continue to inspire young female scientists and young gay scientists to go after possibilities and success.
