The math is fairly straightforward — increase the number of girls studying science, 你增加了女科学家的数量

Two changes in the MHS Science Department during the 2020-21 school year aimed to do just that. 第一个, all departments at Miss Hall’s moved away from the Advanced Placement curriculum [see “Moving Beyond A.P.在2020年秋季 肉类卫生杂志]. Second, the Department stopped sequencing students into “荣誉’”, “regular” tracks. Instead, foundational classes such as Biology and Chemistry include students of all abilities.

“脱下。 荣誉, we have a more heterogeneous mix of students in each class, 我们不再给学生贴标签,科学系主席唐娜·戴格尔说. “Those labels stopped students from exploring courses they might have explored, 因为他们不认为自己是 擅长科学，或 荣誉 水平，甚至在他们上这门课之前.”

“There’s also a sense of equity and access for all students in terms of what they have available to them,科学教师詹妮弗·拉弗雷斯特补充道, 他向女士建议. 戴格尔表示，该部门正在考虑这一变化. “这条信息， 你们是常客，你们是荣誉，确实限制了学生的自我意识.”

而, when students discover success in foundational courses, they’re much more likely to take upper-level courses in subsequent years. Faculty in the Science Department are already seeing that play out.

“Once we changed our approach to tracking, we saw a dramatic shift in student interest,” Ms. Daigle笔记. “我们的 electives and Hallmark classes have a mixed grouping of students more representative of our student population. If we want women to fill the ranks as future scientists, then we need to signal that all young women have the capacity to do so, 不仅仅是少数人.”

The shape of those upper-level courses has significantly changed since launching the Hallmark curriculum. There is more project-based learning and less focus on an all-encompassing, end-of-year exam.

“当我们过去安排澳门威利斯网站时, 优等班为学生准备考试, 这推动了内容的发展,” Ms. Daigle补充道. “现在我们问自己，‘我们想教什么? 我们对什么充满激情? 学生需要学习什么? 什么是与今天相关的?”,, 最终, 这些问题, 还有更多, help us to develop courses that better prepare students for college and beyond.”

在2020年秋天, students in Kennedy Raimer’s Earth Science class completed in-depth explorations of the earth’s features, creating infographics to highlight important details of their work and to share what they learned, whether plumbing the depths of the Mariana Trench or calculating the size of the Sahara Desert.

Students were asked to research five areas for each region: a tectonic landform; a water-made landform; an atmospheric event; a water network; and a human impact. “The goals were for students to understand how the systems of the earth are dynamic and work together, and for them to explore what processes have created the earth as we know it today,” Ms. Raimer解释说.

“我喜欢这个项目，”23岁的珍爱·巴克斯顿说. “I am very passionate about climate change and would love to pursue a career in environmental engineering. 这是我学习地球科学的主要目的. I believe the first step to fighting climate change is to become more aware. We must step out of our own country and take account of how actions affect people in other regions as well.”

"We've had great success with Project Based Learning,科学老师詹妮弗·拉弗雷斯特说, whose Chemistry students last year embarked on a several-week, cross-disciplinary project exploring chemistry and connections with historical and contemporary conflicts.

They chose an element or compound associated with an historic conflict — whether rubber in the Congo, 糖和奴隶贸易, or lithium during the Cold War — studied a contemporary conflict associated with the material, then came up with a possible solution for the conflict.

They created posters related to the element/compound and the two conflicts they studied, 写了一篇很长的论文, and developed a multimedia component related to the contemporary conflict.

“工作量很大, 这个项目有很多部分, 这花了很多时间, but we decided 最后 that it was totally worth it,她补充道. “The students respond to these projects, are inquisitive, dig in, and do great work. 和, 最后, they’re going to remember what they learned much more than had I presented it to them in a lecture.”

During Term 2 (October 19 to November 30), the pandemic was raging — and so was the misinformation.

“Coupled with this relevant issue was the question ofcontent,科学系主席唐娜·戴格尔说. “So, 在我第二学期的生物课上, I decided to teach cell physiology by doing a deep dive into the immune system.”

Ms. Daigle posed this question to her students: “There’s a lot of misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 or lack of information. How can we support our community and provide helpful information as we continue to run school during a pandemic?”

Students responded with a number of impressive projects, which included:

• Zoe Brown ' 22: 国家与国家的比较. 澳门威利斯网站COVID-19的国家立法”​

• 22岁的Symaira Elliott: “COVID-19 -马萨诸塞州和伯克希尔”

• Hava Methe 22: “Female Leaders and How they have Handled the Pandemic”​

• Juju Qui ' 22: “SARS-COV-2突变”​

• 22岁的Dorothy Shi和22岁的Sammie Yu: COVID-19疫苗?”

• 22岁的Ivy Zhou: “免疫小镇的危机”