Introducing Diverse Chemists in Chemistry Courses

Abstract

In undergraduate classrooms, a majority of chemistry discoveries introduced are by white men and a small group of white women. There is greater online representation of chemists of diverse backgrounds, but the emphasis on diversity is mainly based on a monthly theme from Black History Month to Women's History Month. The "Diversity in Chemistry" website (https:// sites.google.com/view/diversityinchemistry/) is meant to be a collective online resource and a valuable tool for the classroom. Students were introduced to chemists of diverse backgrounds through PowerPoint presentations at the beginning of class. Students completed pre-and postsurveys to measure their awareness of diverse chemists, how these stories impacted their learning, and their interest in further knowledge. Data and feedback from surveys shows that sharing diverse chemists' stories can have a positive effect on students across the curriculum.

Navigating the Future of Separation Science Education: A Perspective

“…As curriculum evolves to better reflect the needs of modern separation science, there is an opportunity to increase the focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and respect (DEIR) within the discipline [ 15 ]. Many instructors have updated their courses to focus on diverse scientists who have made important discoveries within a given field [ 16 ]. The authors of the widely used Quantitative Chemical Analysis textbook have developed a repository of such examples within analytical chemistry, including a large number of separation scientists [ 17 ].…”

I Am A Scientist: Overcoming implicit bias in STEM through explicit representations of diversity in lectures

“…While our conclusions and methodology are robust within the scope of the study, our findings are not necessarily applicable in all contexts. The sample size is modest, but compares favourably with some other published reports of interventions to improve student understanding of diversity in university STEM settings [44,58]. While our sample is drawn from postgraduate and undergraduate students at multiple stages of their degrees, participants are all at a single UK university.…”

A Resource to Support Decolonization of the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum

“…Minority ethnic individuals are significantly under-represented within the chemistry researcher population and broader commercial chemical workforce, [1][2][3][4] providing an urgent issue for us to address as a chemistry community. As early as the 1970's, a survey by Hernan Young in the Journal of Chemical Education revealed the extremely low proportion of ethnic minoritized scientists in the United States.…”

“…31 Ries and Mensinger have created a "Diversity in Chemistry" web-based resource to support the inclusion of more diverse Chemists for example at the start of a lecture. 3 The resource we present here complements these other activities, by focusing for the first time on presenting a repository of 4 examples to decolonize a chemistry curriculum. Our work also provides a wider number of examples than were included in these previous publications.…”