The Scientist Spotlights Initiative:
Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Science
through Development, Assessment, and Dissemination of Curriculum
Supplements that Bring Rare Science Role Models to Students
Project Summary/Abstract
San Francisco State University (SFSU) and Foothill Community College – in strong collaboration with
the San Francisco public schools, the California Academy of Sciences, Story Collider, and Science Friday
– propose The Scientist Spotlights Initiative: Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Science through
Development, Assessment, and Dissemination of Curriculum Supplements that Bring Rare Science Role
Models to Students. Research into science identity, science belonging, stereotype threat, and possible
selves suggests a lack of diverse representations of scientists is impeding traditionally under-represented
students from persisting and succeeding in science from middle school through college. Access to diverse
role models in science appears to be key; however, bringing diverse scientists directly to classrooms is
simply not feasible as a regular part of the science curriculum. Science instructors at all levels – middle
school, high school, community college, and university – are enthusiastic about promoting inclusion in
science, bringing diverse role models to classrooms, and connecting these real scientists to students'
learning experiences. However, few curricular materials currently exist that support teachers in regularly
and systematically connecting diverse role models and science careers to students and the content they
teach. In previous efforts, we have evaluated a series of metacognitive homework assignments – Scientist
Spotlights – that featured counter-stereotypical examples of scientists in an introductory biology class at a
diverse community college. Scientist Spotlights additionally served as tools to engage students in content,
as scientists were selected to match topics covered each week. Research on the impact of Scientist
Spotlight interventions revealed that these simple curriculum supplements shifted students' ideas towards
counter-stereotypical descriptions of scientists and enhanced their ability to personally relate to scientists.
As Scientist Spotlights require very little class time and complement existing curricula, they represent a
promising tool for enhancing science identity, shifting stereotypes, and connecting content to issues of
equity and diversity in a broad range of STEM classrooms, from middle school through university. Over
5 years, we anticipate developing, piloting, and assessing ~200 unique Scientist Spotlight curriculum
supplements that would allow science instructors from middle to high school to community college to
integrate diversity explicitly into their courses, engaging ~40 non-traditional college-level students/year
and ~12 science teachers/year in implementing and assessing Scientist Spotlights in their classrooms with
~1,500 enrolled students, establishing service-learning courses to institutionalize these efforts, continuing
our record of publishing research on such efforts with SEPAL postdoctoral scholars, producing an
accessible Scientists Spotlights Initiative website to make materials widely available, and disseminating
the effort in collaboration with school, museum, and media partners.
