25 Notable Scientists

1. Galileo Galilei

2. Marie Curie****

3. Percy Julian

4. Charles Darwin

5. Aristotle

6. Isaac Newton

7. Yohan Kepler

8. Jane Goodall****

9. Rosalind Franklin****

10. Leonardo da Vinci

11. Albert Einstein

12. Benjamin Franklin

13. Jean-Jacques Cousteau

14. Voltaire

15. Franklin Roosevelt

16. Martin von Broun

17. Louis Pasteur

18. Neils Bohr

19. Thomas Edison

20. Rene Descartes

21. Nicolaus Copernicus

22. Carl Sagan

23. Edwin Hubble

24. Archimedes

25. Max Planck

****= girls

When looking up this list of scientists we found that in the top 25 there were only 3 girls. This was surprising and not surprising all at the same time. It was surprising because when we think of scientists we mostly think of our science teachers which a lot of times are girls. This was also not surprising because back when they were becoming famous women didn't get as good of an education therefore making have less of a chance to become well known scientists

The book Math Doesn't Suck by Danica McKellar is a guide for middle school girls about math. It tells Ms. McKellar's real story of her middle school math experience. At first, she describes her seventh grade math test "as if it were written in Chinese". She says that she was an actor in middle school, and everyone said they really liked her television character, but she wondered whether they liked her or just her character. So, she, who had struggled so much in middle school math, took a break off of acting to major in college in mathematics. She says, for advice to middle school girls in math, that you should be patient and stay true to yourself, and be confident.

Mean Girls [Movie Trailer]

In the movie, Mean Girls, there was definitely a gender bias. The main character is a girl named Cady. Cady is amazing at math, and she has a great understanding of the subject. Cady is a junior in high school, and has never before gone to a real school. At first, she tries hard and does well. But by the middle of the year, she has developed a crush on the boy who sits in front of her, named Aaron. Because she is too scared to talk to him on her own, she dumbs herself down and asks for his help. This shows that sometimes there is a gender bias in the classroom because girls are uncomfortable with seeming smart, so they purposefully pretend to be stupid. That makes it seem like boys are smarter, because they get better grades, when really girls have the same ability level. Another example of gender bias is when Cady is forced is forced to join a math club, and all of them are boys. Not only is she forced to join because of how good she is, but also because the club will get more funds if there is a female on the team. If there wasn't a gender bias, then the club wouldn't have gotten more money just because there's a girl on the team.

We took a survey on the 7th graders here at Julian, and asked them which subjects they were most comfortable with, and which were the easiest to comprehend based off of content. The choices were Math/Science and Language Arts/Social Studies. We then divided the girls and boys results. Our conclusions were that among the 7th graders, both boys are girls found Language Arts/Social Studies easier and they liked it better. We tested 194 kids.

In recent studies, scientists have proven that there is somewhat of a gender bias in the subjects of Math and Science. Their studies show that boys usually preform better than girls, but that sometimes their lack of maturity balances it out. When we talked to the math and science teachers on our team, Ms. Gora and Ms. Rogers, they gave us some interesting information. Ms. Gora said that she didn't think there was a gender bias in her science classroom, and that students either do well or poorly based off of their own ability level. Ms. Rogers, on the other hand, said that over the years, boys tend to preform slightly better in the subject of mathematics than girls do. In the field of math and science both agreed that there was still a gender bias although there are usually more women teachers. Here at Julian all of the math teachers are women while at the other middle school, Brooks, most are men. In the fields of math and science themselves, such as chemists and biologists, most are men. This is because women have only recently been allowed and excepted by society to be able to study the sciences. For example, our group came up with a list of 25 notable scientists. Only three on that list were women. This is because when most of these scientists were alive and becoming famous, women weren't allowed to get the education necessary to become scientists.