Departments : Integrating Science in Your Classroom :
African American Innovators
By John Cowens
Introduce your students to some of the countless contributions African American men and women have made to science
Online Extra: African American Scientific Contributions – Extended List
Great minds – (clockwise top to bottom) inventors George Washington Carver and Bessie Blount; astronaut Ronald E. McNair.
One rainy Sunday, I was listening to the CD titled Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. One particular song, "Black Man," is a history lesson that cites contributions people of all races have made to benefit humankind. The chorus offers a wonderful reminder:
"We pledge allegiance
All our lives
To the magic colors
Red, blue and white
But we all must be given
The liberty that we defend
For with justice not for all men
History will repeat again
It's time we learned
This world was made for all men."
The greatest odds
Most black slaves were not allowed to receive a formal education, and even free blacks were limited to mainstream education and vocational training. Basically, blacks were denied professional positions and restricted to industrial work such as domestic services, agriculture and manual trades. Despite these restrictions, many extraordinary, talented African American men and women were still able to obtain an education and make great contributions for humankind.
Here is a sampling of African Americans who made, and continue to make, great contributions in science. (For a more comprehensive list click here.) Following are also some activities with which to introduce your students to these remarkable individuals.
AGRICULTURE
George Washington Carver (1864 or '65-1943) was born into slavery in Missouri. Carver developed hundreds of applications for farm products important to the economy of the south, including peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and pecans.
ASTRONOMY
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958- ) is the youngest Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.
Dr. Arthur Bertram Cuthbert Walker II (1936-2001) was a solar physicist and X-ray astronomer who chaired the presidential commission that investigated the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
BIOLOGY
Dale Emeagwali (1954- ) has advanced the understanding of what causes cancer in the blood. She received the 1996 National Technical Association's Scientist of the Year Award in the field of cancer research.
Roger Arliner Young (1889-1964) was the first black woman to conduct and publish research in the field of zoology, and the first African American woman to receive a doctorate degree.
CHEMISTRY
Ida Stephen Owens (1929- ) performed research at the National Institutes of Health and shed light on how the human body defends itself against poison.
Bertram O. Fraser-Reid (1934- ) is a member of the team that developed a strategy for making oligosaccharides (links of simple sugar). Hopefully, his research might contribute to medical breakthroughs in the treatment of AIDS.
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Clarence Ellis (1943- ) was the first African American to receive a degree in computer science.
John P. Moon (1938- ) helped create the devices that store and retrieve data generated by computers. He is Apple Computer's v.p. for peripherals engineering.
INVENTIONS
Bessie Blount (1914- ) is a forensic scientist and physical therapist. She invented a device called the portable receptacle support, which allows amputees to feed themselves by biting a tube that delivered one mouthful of food at a time.
Michael Croslin (1933-1989) received more than 40 patents for inventions including a computerized blood pressure machine and an intravenous pump used to dispense exact dosages of medication.
Lonnie G. Johnson (1949- ) held over 20 patents and created the Super Soaker® water gun, which has grossed over a million dollars in retail sales.
MEDICINE
Cesar, an 18th-century slave, was granted his freedom and a pension by the South Carolina General Assembly for his discovery of a cure for rattlesnake bites.
Benjamin Carson (1951- ) is a pediatric neurosurgeon renowned for successfully performing the intricate surgery that separated twins conjoined at the head.
Justina Ford (1871-1952) was Colorado's only black physician, delivering nearly 7,000 babies, and making all of her house calls by streetcar or taxicab.
NASA ASTRONAUTS AND SCIENTISTS
Colonel Guion "Guy" Bluford (1942- ) was the first African American in space, traveling aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger as a mission specialist on its third flight (its first with a night launch and night landing) in August 1983.
Ronald E. McNair (1950-1986) was one of 35 candidates chosen from a pool of 10,000 for astronaut training. He died during launch on the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986.
Mae C. Jemison (1956- ) holds a doctorate in medicine and was the first African American woman in space.
"Ozzie" Williams (1921- ) developed small rocket engines that would steer the lunar landing modules on Project Apollo missions.
PHYSICS
Edward Alexander Bouchet (1852-1918) became the first African American and the sixth American of any race to earn a Ph.D. in Physics.
Lawnie Taylor (1920- ) plans and directs programs for the Department of Energy that promote/support commercialization of newly developed solar techniques.
Activity ideas
- Match Game Provide this list or have students gather a list of 10 or more famous African American scientists, their accomplishments and the year of their achievements. Put the names in one column, scramble their accomplishments and place them in the middle column, then scramble the year of their accomplishments and place them in a third column. Students will need to draw lines from the person's name to the accomplishment, and to the year of the feat.
- Innovations Timeline Using the extended African American scientific innovations list as a resource, research the years in which the innovators had significant accomplishments and put these on a long strip of paper to create a timeline. This could be broadened to a timeline of famous African Americans and their contributions that have improved humankind. You'll need to break this down into categories of accomplishments such as Inventions, Combat Pilots, Entertainment, Government, Sports, Literature, etc.
- "My hero" Micrography Older students can use whatever media is available and further research an African American scientist they might consider a hero. Then, using facts and quotes about that person, they can create a micrographic portrait. Go to http://review.educationworld.com:8080/a_tech/techlp/techlp047.shtml to learn more about this lesson that incorporates science, history, technology and art.
Online Extra: African American Scientific Contributions – Extended List
John Cowens teaches sixth grade at Fleming Middle School in Grants Pass, OR.
February 2007, Vol.37, No.5
