Scientist Role Models

In this activity, students find a scientist with whom they can relate in some way and then explore and reflect upon the impact of that scientist’s work.

This activity allows students to choose a scientist, and the part of biology they study, to explore on their own. Students can select their scientist from the “Scientist Profiles” document, which includes links to related BioInteractive Scientists at Work videos. After investigating the scientist and their research, students write and revise a short piece of writing about what they learned. 

Two versions of the “Student Handout” are available for this activity. The short handout focuses on notetaking and writing short paragraphs. The extended handout has students read a piece of primary literature from the scientist and then write a 400- to 500-word essay. Both handouts were designed to promote transparent teaching strategies and include rubrics for the written assignments.

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.