Today marks the birthday of American astronomer Antonia Maury in 1866. She was an American astronomer and “Harvard Computer” who was paid only slightly more than a factory worker to polish up the work of astrophysicist Edward Pickering, then the director of Harvard College Observatory. Maury went far beyond it, improving the entire system of … Continued
The US Department of Education says that women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees. Women receive 62.6% of master’s degrees. But only 31% of degrees and certificates in STEM fields go to women. This gap has an uneasy, well-known counterpart on Wikipedia. Roughly 80–90% of the volunteers writing Wikipedia are men. It’s perhaps no coincidence that … Continued
In January, Wiki Education Foundation board elected a new board member, Dr. Carwil Bjork-James. Dr. Bjork-James is an expert in indigenous communities and a years-long contributor to Wikipedia, both as an editor and as an instructor in our Classroom Program. Dr. Bjork-James is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. He earned his PhD at … Continued
March is Women’s History Month. This week, we’re sharing articles from students about women scientists from Tamar Carrol’s American Women’s History course at RIT. One student expanded the article about Carolyn S. Shoemaker, an American astronomer who co-discovered the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, which collided with Jupiter in 1994. That collision was the first extraterrestrial collision … Continued
Highlights On January 15, we officially launched the Year of Science, our initiative to improve both Wikipedia’s science content and the science communication skills of higher education students across the United States and Canada. The Year of Science will include significant outreach to increase the number of supported courses in STEM and other science fields. … Continued
February 28 marked the birthday of Linus Pauling. Pauling was the author of 850 scientific texts on a wide variety of fields, such as quantum chemistry and molecular biology, including an early textbook, The Nature of the Chemical Bond. This week, we’re highlighting student work on Wikipedia that focuses on areas that would do the poly-didactic … Continued
In honor of Black History Month, we’re sharing articles about black women in science. We know that Wikipedia is often missing these stories. For the Year of Science, Wiki Ed is connecting with higher education classrooms to helps students understand that there is diversity in science. When students uncover and share stories not only of … Continued
With the Year of Science underway, we’ve been seeing a lot of enthusiasm from instructors, partners, and the media. People are sharing stories and talking about the difference this assignment has made. It’s great. But there’s been a lot of confusion, too, so we thought it might be time to put some things out there. … Continued
If you’re worried about your drinking water — and with the recent news, who wouldn’t be? — a Google search is likely to take you to Wikipedia. We’re working with student editors to make sure that these questions get good, scientifically accurate answers, drawn from reliable sources. This week, we’re sharing some student work that … Continued
