Who are the most significant women in American history?
March is National Women's History Month. As recently as the 1970s, women's history was virtually an unknown topic in the K-12 curriculum or in general public consciousness. To address this situation, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women initiated a "Women's History Week" celebration for 1978. They chose the week of March 8th to integrate the existing International Women's Day as the focal point of the observance.
In 1987, the National Women's History Project petitioned Congress to expand the national celebration to the entire month of March. Since then, the National Women's History Month Resolution has been approved with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Each year, programs and activities in schools, workplaces, and communities have become more extensive as information and program ideas have been developed and shared.
Traditional Search Learning Activity
Most elementary curricula include research activities that focus on biography of famous people. This activity is designed to use biographies of famous American women to learn more about their role in creating much of the progress in our country. Teachers should assign each student a different woman from the list below (or add to it).
Students should create an oral or PowerPoint report of about two minutes that cites at least two resources. It should include a picture of the woman and another one that symbolizes their major accomplishment. The report should also summarize the life and accomplishments of the woman:
Jane Addams; Susan Brownell Anthony; Clara Barton; Margaret Bourke-White; Rachel Carson; Carrie Chapman Catt; Emily Dickinson; Mary Baker Eddy; Betty Friedan; Dorothy Fuldheim; Jane Goodall; Rear Admiral Grace Hopper; Barbara Jordan; Helen Keller; Juliette Gordon Low; Christa McAuliffe; Sandra Day O'Connor; Alice Paul; Sally Ride; Eleanor Anna Roosevelt; Margaret Sanger; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Annie Sullivan; Sojourner Truth; Harriet Tubman; Eudora Welty; Laura Ingalls Wilder; and Babe Didrikson Zaharias
The report should include answers to at least three of the following essential questions for critical thinking:
When, where, and in what environment was this woman born?
What was this woman's greatest accomplishment?
What do you think inspired this woman to achieve what she did?
How do this woman's accomplishments benefit us today?
Is there anything about this person's life that inspires you and why?
Pathfinder
Students should use the name of the person assigned to them to do a key word search. Students will need to use at least two sources to answer the essential questions.
