Want To Dismantle Racism In Science? Start In The Classroom
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"Does genius absolve racism?" was the subject line of an e-mail from Short Wave listener and antibody engineer Esther Odekunle. We don't think it does. Some of the most prestigious scientists in history advanced racist and eugenicist views. But why is that rarely mentioned in textbooks? Can racial justice and science history be incorporated into a science class?
Today on the show, we speak with science educators building an anti-racist perspective into their curriculum and seeking to make the science classroom more inclusive.
We speak with:
- Letimicia Fears, a postdoctoral fellow in the Collaborative for STEM Education and Outreach at Vanderbilt University and an adjunct in the Department of Biological Science at Tennessee State University
- Gretchen Kraig-Turner, a science teacher at Burlington-Edison High School and a contributing author to Rethinking School
- Viji Sathy, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an administrator in the Office of Undergraduate Education
More resources:
- Inclusivity Checklist for the Science Classroom, by Letimicia Fears
- Beyond Just A Cells Unit: What My Students Learned From the Story of Henrietta Lacks, by Gretchen Kraig-Turner
- Resources for Teaching Inclusively During COVID, by Viji Sathy
- Dismantling Systemic Racism in Science, by Esther Odekunle
This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez. It was edited by Viet Le and fact-checked by Ariela Zebede. Special thanks to Yowei Shaw.