Women Scientists beyond History

Cards to play and learn, expanding our knowledge about the women who made STEM history.. .by having fun!

Flashcards to develop interest and knowledge about pioneer women in STEM fields from the past and the current days, with a particular attention on the various grounds of discrimination(s), underlining their contribution(s) to science.

The pack is composed of 2 decks made of 57 couples of cards each. Each couple is composed of an orange card bearing the scientist’s name, and of a violet card with the scientist’s short biography, name and area of interest or research. The cards with face and name also report the intersectional wheel, a 8-slice shape, each slice corresponding to a discriminatory ground faced by the scientist during her lifetime.

Important: cards need to be printed in two different decks. In particular, in one deck, cards will have the face/name of the woman on one side and the logo of the FIT project on the other, while cards of the second deck will have the bio&field of research on one side and the FIT logo on the other. It is recommended to use a professional printer for printing the cards. However, as it was not always possible to source copyright-free or high-resolution images, some of them may appear slightly blurry. Therefore, it is suggested to also use the virtual format when presenting the scientists to students.

Many and diverse games and activities

1.KNOWLEDGE BOOSTING > the students practice about the cards’ content by studying them and, possibly, integrating the bio’s with a private research

2.MEMORY > the teacher or one of the students places a definite number of cards (face and bio’s), with the logo- side up. In turn, each student/player has to turn 2 cards (one revealing the face and one revealing the bio) and shall try to find the matches.

3.IDENTIFIER (just with the orange cards) > Students sit in a circle. The teacher (or controller) sits or stands in the middle. The teacher covers one or more detail(s) of the card and, starting with a given student, shows the card to the player, in order for the latter to guess the missing element(s). If the first student does not guess right, the turn goes on clockwise. The student who guesses correctly, “wins” the card. A more complex version foresees playing with the whole class, with students raising their hands to reply. Points (+-1) shall be assigned according to the element(s) (un)correctly guessed. BONUS: In case the scientist got an award and the student recalls the name of the prize and the year of the assignment, the total points of the card double !

4.HALF OF THE APPLE > Students have to be in pair number “2n” (if odd, one student replaces the teacher). “n” couples of cards are selected and randomly given out to students. This way, each couple of cards related to a scientist will be held by 2 different students - identity cards have to be kept hidden! The players will move around in the room in order to re-create each couple: the students given of the face-sided card will pose the questions, while those who received the bio- sided ones will answer - but only by saying “yes”, “no” and “maybe”! Questions may be about all the “elements” of the card. The game is won by the couple that is able to gather together / combine the two sides in the shortest time. It is recommended to play this game after having a lesson on the history of women/intersectional science, using the information from the cards.

5.MAKE_YOUR_OWN_CARDS > The teacher assigns blank cards to students and encourages them to create new cards after having researched about female scientists that made historical achievements :)