Equity in the Science Space Supported in the Classroom

Image above comes from the National Science Board (https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20245/representation-of-demographic-groups-in-stem). This statistic shows a sad reality in the field of STEM in regards to representation. For a multitude of reasons there is less diversity represented in the STEM fields among minority groups. The biggest reason is simply a case of history of what a “scientist” is. Many classical views of scientists are that of a white haired, white, old man in a lab with chemicals. This narrative is then furthered when those that can imagine themselves in the role continue into the field while those who cannot see themselves as scientists do not try. Thus there continues to be a lack of diverse models and diversity is kept at bay. There isn’t a lack of potential role models either, the more diverse in the field are simply rarely highlighted.

If you look, there are plenty of non-white and woman scientists that made huge leaps into the field of science throughout its history. This history is simply not explored in the spaces of education where scientists are mentioned. This becomes even more true in my own field of physics. Science is slowly getting better at acknowledging its less often accounted for minds, but physics has a particular obsession with not acknowledging its history or only divulging into the few known names that laid out its equations. When you look up “physicist” and go to the first handful of images, there is an amount of diversity, but also about half of the top images are Albert Einstein. The way to begin combatting this is by adding more diverse role models into the topics we teach and highlighting that the field of science is built up by many contributions pooling together.

Physics has a number of individuals that can be pulled from throughout time that can fulfill this. One particularly accomplished individual is Émilie du Châtelet, who lived in the 1700s. My physics professor at college decided to have her included at the beginning of our conversation on energy due to her work with the debate on “living forces.” However she was a very prolific writer that could be brought up throughout a physics class.

Bringing up scientists in conversation will allow some representation to be seen, but it won’t take hold into the minds of the students entirely without being at the choice and will of the students. One way I can do this in my classroom is by giving a project where students are allowed their own choice in finding and researching a scientist of a given identity that made contributions to the field. In this way they can take learning into their own hands and have conversations that don’t feel purely like busy work. Also they can dive far deeper into the depths of what those scientists did than could be reasonably covered in class so they can fully internalize it.