Category: Essentials

Core classes in English Literacy, Khmer Literacy, Math, and Science.

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College Essay – Deconstructing Hate

The Vietnamese are obnoxious. The Vietnamese cause woe and degradation. The Vietnamese are the root of social and environmental ills: illegal logging, trawling, overfishing, pollution, poverty, and land scarcity. The Vietnamese enter Cambodia with ulterior motives: to shred our nation, to colonize us, and to weed out our Khmer culture.

This is the sentiment of my people toward the Vietnamese. This anti-Vietnam antagonism exists because of our embittered history—losing our territory. In an article entitled “Out of 20 of my friends, 17 hate the Vietnamese,” the Phnom Penh Post stated that the Vietnamese began to occupy our land in the 17th century, conquered Cambodia and seized Phnom Penh in the 19th century; they controlled our kingdom during the French Protectorate, and stole two pieces of ancestral Khmer land. What is even worse is that their involvement during the ferocious Khmer Rouge regime still haunts Cambodians, especially the older generation. Because of this savagery, there is justification for our suspicion and hostility; however, does a painful history justify the hate and prejudice of today?

In 2017, my classmates and I visited Vietnam for the very first time for Model United Nations (MUN). Along the way, I had a mixed feeling of how I should behave in a communist country and how the Vietnamese were going to perceive us. I expected Vietnam to be a sour land of mystery and depravity. Nevertheless, my expectation was proven wrong by my interaction with Vietnamese.

Sitting in a taxi, chattering mirthfully, my friends and learning facilitators and I were heading to the water park for relaxation on a sunny day. But suddenly, the rain started to pour.  As the coldness soared and the traffic swelled, the loudness of our voices died, and the lethargy soon suffused the atmosphere. I then reached for my phone to play music, and soon, everyone started to sing along. Since then, all our voices started to mute the music; but not for long because the driver saved our day. He turned his head to look and held a speaker cable to give to us. Just by this one simple act, our day was saturated with delight and our memory selectively captured this moment.

In 2018, I participated in a MUN in Vietnam again, and to say that I did not worry about my destination and their people would be a lie—residue of prejudice are still alive. But I would say that because of my last experience in Vietnam, my hesitancy had diminished.

Contentedly entering a Circle K store located in Saigon, my friends and I strolled through the door with dance moves, singing to the song of “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran. We smiled, we shouted, and we laughed. Not just us, but also the Vietnamese cashier.

He complimented, he conversed, and he loved it. At that moment, I knew that the fire of hate in me had been extinguished.

In the same year, I was accepted by the secretary team to be a Deputy Chair (student officer) of Disarmament and International Security General Assembly of the MUN again, but this time the event was held in Cambodia. Now, it was time for me to completely cease the fire.

Welcoming my Vietnamese Head Chair to Cambodia for the first time with a hug and a smile, we were ready to serve. We collaborated to lead the committee to a successful path by guiding the delegates through the process and the protocols. Even though she was my Head Chair, we divided the tasks and the power equally. Together, we managed all the struggles and concerns carefully and were able to create memorable days for the delegates and for us; she was able to remove the last lingering barriers that I had with Vietnamese. I finally learned that I as a Cambodian citizen could cooperate with and really like a Vietnamese person.

My intention of bringing up these small snapshots is to illustrate that we can learn from the past to rewrite our future. We need to cooperate to extinguish the fire of hate; hate is a blindfold that block the beauty of people. By directly working and conversing with my Vietnamese counterparts, I have found the means to socially deconstruct my own anti-Vietnamese sentiment, and I hope that I can do it for others too.

 

Photo Source: http://observe.asia/senior-military-leader-of-china-meets-with-cambodian-military-delegation/

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S’more Stoichiometry Lab

Have you ever make s’more? If yes, that is great; however, do you know how to use s’more to teach others about limiting and excess reactants?

As part of our unit two topics vary from lewis structure to VSEPR model to polarity to types of bonding, we did a lab to further our understanding of limiting reactant and percent yield, which means the substance that gets used up in a chemical reaction and the percent ratio of actual yield to the theoretical yield respectively.

In this lab, I was working with three other boys, and we were given eight pieces of crackers, five marshmallows, and 12 pieces of chocolate candies. Following the procedure, we had to make four s’mores in which each contains two pieces of crackers, one marshmallow, and three pieces of candies. Hence, we can see that the candies and the crackers are the limiting and the marshmallows are the excess reactant because there is one marshmallow left over after preparing each s’more .

After determining which reactant is excess and which is limiting, we calculated the total weight of one s’more before and after roasting the marshmallow and the chocolate. The before-roasting calculation is going to be our theoretical yield whereas the after-roasting weight is the actual yield. Since we have both the actual and theoretical yield, we can easily find the percent yield by taking actual yield divided by the theoretical yield and multiplied by 100.

For me, I enjoyed not only assembling s’more but also working in a team that is full of boys and weighing and calculating the percent yield. It was my first time to make and eat s’more, and I love it! Can you find the percent yield of your favorite food?

 

 

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Fighting with Nature

As part of our Engineering Strand class, we were assigned to research an engineer so that we can learn more of what they did to get to where they are today.

For this project, I researched about Debbie Sterling because mainly she is a FEMALE engineer. Many people believe that girls should not be an engineer because it is against nature. Additionally, even in college, girls who are majoring in engineering usually are the minorities. Sterling has inspired me in so many ways especially my mindset. Everyone is not born a genius, so to be successful, we need hard work. 

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“Even girls who love being a princess should get the chance to build the castle too,” says Debbie Sterling.

For girls out there, have you imagine of having building blocks or construction kit to play with instead of “pink” dolls, makeup and cooking kit? Many young girls do not have the privilege of having “blue” and “black” legos or simple construction components. Toys that they received from their parents or relatives are selected from the “pink aisle.” That is why Debbie Sterling, a Stanford graduate with engineering degree, has one important mission: to disrupt the pink aisle.

Sterling is an entrepreneur, engineer, forefront of movement to encourage girls to involve more with engineering and technology, and founder and CEO of GoldieBlox ‒ a toy company that is breaking the gender stereotypes by providing girls with building blocks to spark their interests in engineering and inspiring them to love STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) more. Basically, the children can read the story of Goldie, female main character, and they can build a long with Goldie as she faces with challenges. By doing this, it will fight against the nature that girls like “pink, dolls, and princesses.”

Before she started this company, she was working as an intern at a branding and design agency at Hornall Anderson. Even though that she loved her job at that time, she was feeling what she is doing is not enough. She wants to create change and give back to the world in a meaningful way. As a result, she quitted her job and tried to find her true passion. At first, she decided to volunteer in rural India. Next, she worked as a marketing director of a “small, woman-owned jewelry company,” where she gets the opportunity to learn how to run a business. Finally, she found her passion because one of her friends mentioned that there is a lack of women in engineering field. That is where it all started. She gave herself one year to finish the development of GoldieBlox. Because of her determination, there are now more than one million of toys being purchased in more than 6,000 stores across the globe.

Despite all of her amazing accomplishments, her perseverance and hard work should not be neglected. Bearing in mind that only 14% of engineers and architects are female, so for her to enrol in this class in Stanford is very challenging. Being the minority, she felt that she did not fit in: the boys excelled at the assignments and her male teacher were making fun of her because she can not draw in 3 dimensions. At one point, she was on the verge of quitting until her friend encouraged her to not give up. They usually go to library to study and when she saw that the boys were there too, she “realized that it’s not about being a born genius, it’s about how hard you work.” On the other hand, when she were proposing her idea of GoldieBlox to the toy companies, they keep rejecting and say that it will never sell, it will never be successful, and especially that she can not “fight nature.” Regardless of people’s opinion, she still keep fighting for what she truly believes.

Growing up, Debbie has one important role model that she always look up to ‒ her grandmother. Her grandmother also eradicated the stereotypes that woman can not be in the Senior role, that women can not be involved in male-dominated field. She was “one of the first female art director in 1950’s,” and she is also “one of the first female cartoonists at Disney.” Because of what Sterling’s grandmother did, it was one of the reasons that motivated Sterling to reach her dream.

There are three main principles that helped Sterling be successful in this contemporary patriarchy world: risk taking, grit, and passionate. First of all,  her idea is a new concept, and it takes a great amount to risk to develop it because no one has done it before. However, she did not allow that to bar her from helping other girls. As our world continues to develop, it is essential that we experiment new things in order to create positive impact for the world. Secondly, she was being looked down because of her inability to draw in 3 dimensions, but she managed to survive it by working harder. Additionally, there were so many people that keep telling her that her idea is not going to work. Parents will not change their habit of shopping from the “pink aisle.” Nevertheless, she still determined to pursue her dream and at the end, everything works out finely. Finally, passionate, she spend her early twenties searching for her passion: from volunteering in India to working in a jewelry company. Based on her interview with Forbes, she said that find a business idea that you “truly passionate about.” It needs to be something that you are persistent in pursuing it. If you start to question your idea, “you won’t have the inner fire and conviction you will need to overcome the inevitable rough patches and rejections you will face.”

 

Works Cited

“Debbie Sterling.” EngineerGirl, www.engineergirl.org/13512/Debbie-Sterling.

“Get to Know Debbie Sterling’s Grandmother.” GoldieBlox, 16 Apr. 2018, blog.goldieblox.com/2017/09/debbie-sterlings-grandmother/.

Mason, Heather. “Meet Smart Girl Debbie Sterling, Founder and CEO of GoldieBlox.” Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, 29 June 2017, amysmartgirls.com/meet-smart-girl-debbie-sterling-founder-and-ceo-of-goldieblox-103fc961ae37.

TEDxTalks. “Inspiring the next Generation of Female Engineers | Debbie Sterling | TEDxPSU.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Apr. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEeTLopLkEo.

“Women in Architecture and Engineering Occupations in 2016.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10 Mar. 2017, www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/women-in-architecture-and-engineering-occupations-in-2016.htm.

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Publishing a Poetry Book

One of the biggest projects that we did in Khmer class this year is creating a poetry book, which consists of our first Liger cohort writings. Each student contributed at least one poem that either related to education, parents, food, scenery, or love.

In addition to students’ writing, we included different types of Khmer poems and steps to create them. Most students did a lot of research and learning from existing Khmer poems, except book organizers and designers.

In this project, I was both an author and a designer. I contributed one of my poems and drew the feather that is on the front cover. Additionally, I also created the back cover and designed one section of the book, which centered around love, by using Adobe Indesign. After I finished putting students’ poems into the program, I had to do a lot of editing and asking the owner to confirm my changes to their poem.

A few weeks a go, after we completed designing this book, there were a couple of students showcased the printed version of this book at Khmer Literature Festival in Battambang province.

We are now at the stage of finding fund to print this book because we would like to share our love for literature to other students across Cambodia. Since we have a poor reading culture, we believe that this book will come in handy in nurturing the growth of literacy in Cambodia.

Example of one section of the book: កំណាព្យមនោសញ្ចេតនា

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Flame Test Lab

Everything on Earth is made of atoms, and all atoms have electrons, which is a negatively charged particles that move around a nucleus, consists of protons and neutrons.

To further our understand of electrons, we did a cool Flame Test Lab to study how electrons respond to flame, which we can measure their reactions through the use of color. Basically, we put a tiny amount of chemical, Barium Chloride, Calcium Chloride, Copper (II) Chloride, Lithium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, and Strontium Chloride, on a Popsicle stick and bring it to the flame. When heating, the electrons are able to move from the ground state to excited or high-state energy. As they return to their ground state, they will release the energy as photons of light; therefore, the wavelength of the light will produce colors of light.  

There were two challenges that my team noticed when doing this experiment: distinguishing a certain color from another and removing the dropping compound. For instance, it was arduous to identify if the color of the flame is actually green or yellow or green or blue because they are very similar. Additionally, when the students burnt the compound, some of it fell down and stayed at the base of the flame, which can influence the actual color of the next compound.

Personally, I believe that this lab is very beneficial to our understanding of electrons’ behavior when they are being heated. If we just learn this concept from our teacher and did not do the experiment, I think that I would not understand that much of it.

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Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy

After we came back from our holiday in August, this round one Math class shifted its focus from AP Statistics from last year to preparation for SAT as we are going to take it on October 6th.

Since August, we have been using Khan Academy as a part of our toolbox because it is an official SAT practice website since 2015. Furthermore, we used College Board and SAT books as a learning guide. In this class, we also reviewed important math concepts in SAT test because we barely devoted any time on them last year. Additionally, because SAT is a strategic test, we have been exploring multi-faceted approaches to those math questions.

Here are some effective tactics (The 4S) that I found very helpful in doing the SAT math questions and SAT test as a whole.

  • Skip  – The test is designed for us to get some of the questions wrong; therefore, it is okay to miss a few questions and go to solve other questions that we know how to answer. We should not invest so much on questions that we are not sure how to solve when we can use that time on something we know how to do. Remember that time management is crucial in this type of test.
  • Skim – Since this is a time test, if we can skim the question, it would save us some time that we can use for other questions. For instance, if they give us a table or a geometric shapes, we can skim through the writing because it mostly the same as what is being labeled on the table or the shape.
  • Stamina – The test is 3-hour long, so we need to ensure that we still have enough power to do the last math section. I recommend to take at least two practice full tests to know the full experience of taking the SAT. Moreover, I suggest to keep doing math and literacy questions specifically related to SAT test. “Hard work beat talent when talent doesn’t work hard”- Tim Notke.  
  • Self-motivate – I respectfully agree that SAT is not something that someone do for pleasure; however, we have to remind ourselves that why are we doing it? Additionally, remember that “there is nothing you can’t do, if you set your mind to it. Anything is possible.”

 

 

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Which is the Real America?

The first cohort of Liger Leadership Academy is going to take SAT in the 6th of October, and since the history and literature sections of SAT are closely tied with American history, Literacy Round One has focused on the theme of America.

In this class, we were given six American-history texts from CommonLit to read and analysis each week: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, Excerpts from Thomas Jefferson’s Writing on American Indians, Causes of the American Civil War, America’s Shifting Views on Immigration, Excerpt from The Jungle, and The Great Depression. To further understand these oppressive issues, we also read additional articles from Newsela and watched videos and part of a documentary series.

Within each text, we had to read, annotate, answer multiple choice and writing prompt questions, research the meaning(s) and part of speech of each vocabulary and write a sentence for each part of speech as well as discuss the text and related topics with our friends and learning facilitator. To better manage our time, we usually talked about the text and any word that we struggled to understand on Monday, discussed about multiple choice questions and writing prompt(s) on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, and worked independently on our “Vocabulary Exploration” and answered the questions on CommonLit on Thursday.

Personally, I am always eager to learn about world history because it helped me to understand the past events that affect each country today. For instance, when I read and discussed about Causes of the American Civil War, I now fully understand why racism is still a reality in America. Hundreds of years ago, black people were considered an “inferior” species until the point that they were used as “property.” Even though that we now in the 21st century, many Americans still suffer from discrimination, injustices, and exploitation.

In addition to the importance of learning history, these texts has taught me that the America that I used to think of is not always the truth. I used to believe that America is a land that fills with amazing opportunities and happiness; however, after reading these texts, that is not always the case: America has suffered and currently face with many atrocious issues. So, which one do you believe is the real America?

Causes of the American Civil War

Question: Analyze how the differing views on slavery between the North and South resulted in the Civil War.
 
As the Constitutional Convention of 1787 called both the North and the South to form “a single federal government,” there was a dispute among the two colonies: they had different perspectives on slavery. The North viewed slavery as a sin and therefore should be eradicated; whereas the South, they believed that slavery is “the basis of Southern life”‒ therefore ending it will threaten the Southern way of life ‒ and declared that it is ”ordained by God.” Because of these opposite stances, they had lead to virulence and violence. To abolish slavery, the North “volunteers patrolled streets to rescue fugitive blacks from the slave catchers.” This action has caused the southerners to respond “with an increasingly virulent hateful attacks on their critics.” This shows that the South really did detest the North’s effort to free the slaves. In addition to the adverse effect of their views, two days later after a “scathing speech” was delivered in June 1856, a Southern congressmen “severely beat the abolitionist with a gold walking cane.” This reflects the antagonism that the southerners had toward the abolitionists. These heterogeneous viewpoints on slavery demonstrate how they contributed to the cause of the Civil War.
 

America’s Shifting Views on Immigration

Excerpt from the Jungle

The Great Depression

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The Fingers that Fix Nitrogens

We often think that plant roots absorb water, but these giant-mucousy fingers actually pull in airborne nitrogen.

Professor and plant scientist Alan Bennett ‒ a member of the Plant Sciences Department at University of California, Davis ‒ led a team of researchers to find out the reasons why the aerial roots of Sierra Mixe corn behaves that way. The result lies in the thick and glistening mucous surround the roots.

After completing three phases of testing and 10 years of working on the project, the team was able to conclude that there are actually tiny residents inside the mucus. For phase 1, the team utilized a “modern DNA-sequencing” method to reveal that those microscopic creatures are indeed microbes from nitrogen-fixing family. Whereas for phase 2, the mucus were chemically analyzed, and it turned out that the mucus provides safety shelter to the microbes and protects them from having contact with the oxygen. Finally, using five separated tests, the team could say that the nitrogen converted by the microbes and provided with “30% to 80% of plant’s need” has transformed itself in order for the corns to absorb and use for the entire plant.

There are multi-faceted applications that we can use from this finding. One way is to transplant the mucus. Imagine if other plants contain the same mucus, then farming becomes more sustainable without constantly buying fertilizers. Additionally, crossbreeding the Sierra Mixe corn with conventional corn is possible. Therefore, these two possibilities may lead to further genetic engineering. Although the mucousy corn takes at least eight months to mature, if we can intermix both plant genese, there will be less adverse effects on the environment.   

There are many disadvantages and hazardous effects that can be caused by synthetic fertilizer. As fertilizer is a double-edge sword, it can affect people’s health while also can wash off into the rivers, which lead to immense algae bloom causing organisms to die because of lacks of oxygen. Furthermore, manufacturing fertilizers is an energy-intensive industry. Therefore, nitrogen-fixation ‒a process of converting nitrogen into organic compound‒ is an alternative way to solve these problems due to its efficiency and sustainability. For instance, this technique of nitrogen-fixation will fit best in areas where soils are depleted of nitrogen or where fertilizer is not accessible or affordable.

Although, there are clear advantages of nitrogen fixation in the corn, there are still uncertainty regarding microbes and gene of the corn: name and number of species of the microbes, possible drawbacks of nitrogen-fixation gene, and type of gene that enable aerial roots to contain mucous and microbes. Despite these ambiguity, nitrogen-fixation modus operandi still hold great value.

Global consumption of fertilizers, especially nitrogen fertilizers, has rapidly grown according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In the new FAO report entitled “World fertilizer trends and outlook to 2018” states that the usage of fertilizer will increase by “1.8 percent through 2018”‒ a 25-percent growth from 2008. As clearly shown, just over one decade, the augmentation of the fertilizer has grown nearly a quarter. Then, what would happen in the next 10 years, 7 years, or even 4 years?

Although nitrogen made up 78% of atmosphere, however, only small percent of crops can fix those excess nitrogen. Therefore, as the world progress, we need to be able to have more plants that have the ability to fix nitrogen like those Sierra Mixe corns. If those plants can grow at a commercial rate, it may further lead to eradicating food insecurity. This opens door to many opportunities for people to be creative, to find a way to carry out the plan, and to change the world!

 

Works Cited

“Can We Grow One of the World’s Largest Food Crops Without Fertilizer?” UC Davis, 1 Oct. 2018, www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/grow-food-crops-without-fertilizer/.

Daley, Jason. “The Corn of the Future Is Hundreds of Years Old and Makes Its Own Mucus.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 10 Aug. 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/corn-future-hundreds-years-old-and-makes-its-own-mucus-180969972/#rbuO1cTVFzzLit1I.99.

“Fertilizer Use to Surpass 200 Million Tonnes in 2018.” International Rice Commission Newsletter Vol. 48, FAO of the UN, www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/277488/icode/.

“Fertilizer Use to Surpass 200 Million Tonnes in 2018.” International Rice Commission Newsletter Vol. 48, FAO of the UN, www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/277488/icode/.

Yong, Ed. “The Wonder Plant That Could Slash Fertilizer Use.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 10 Aug. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/amaizeballs/567140/.

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How can Wonder Woman’s bracelets deflect bullets?

Wonder Woman has many superpowers: reflexes, superhuman strength, superhuman speed, and durability. Reflexes refers to the ability to react quickly, superhuman strength is when you are physically stronger than the maximum strength that humans and animals can achieve, superhuman speed is about the ability to move faster that what is possible in our real world, and durability is the ability of be able to use for a long time without getting damaged. Examining the movie and the comics, the durability of Wonder Woman’s unbreakable bracelets have the ability to deflect bullets. This depends on how quickly she reacts to those bullets, and how those bracelets ensure that not a lot of momentum gets passed to Wonder Woman.

Since momentum is always conserved, the total momentum of the bullet and Wonder Woman before the collision must be equivalent to the total momentum of them after the collision. As the bullet hits her, small portion of bullet’s velocity gets transferred to her, which  cause her to move back just a little bit. Then, the bullet will bounce off of her bracelet at smaller velocity than its initial velocity because its final velocity has to combined with Wonder Woman’s velocity to be equal to their total momentum before the crash. Even though Wonder Woman receives small recoil velocity, we can not really see her bounce off like the bullet because that velocity is very tiny.

The explanation of the law of conservation of momentum does make sense, and it is realistic. To make momentum conserved, the bullet has to bounce back with smaller velocity, and Woman Woman will get some velocity from the bullet to move back as well. However, superhuman speed, superhuman strength, reflexes, and durability are seemed as impossible to achieve in our real world. Are there any human that can move faster or physically stronger than the maximum strength and speed that any organism in our planet can do? Additionally, we have not found any material that can used to create objects that resist damage. Also, Wonder Woman’s reaction time has to be small in order to deflect a bullet. There was a scene in the movie that the shooter is 5 meter away from her and that means her reaction time is approximately .01 second, which is incredibly small for our humans to have.  In order to make “reflexes” superpower more physically realistic, the movies and the comics should let the shooter fires the gun from further distance. By doing this, it allows Wonder Woman to have greater reaction time to those bullets.

 

Works Cited

Allain, Rhett. “The Physics of Bullets Vs. Wonder Woman’s Bracelets.” Wired, Conde Nast, 8 June 2017, www.wired.com/2017/06/physics-bullets-versus-wonder-womans-bracelets/.

Gemmill, Allie. “Wonder Woman’s Got Some Serious Superpowers.” Bustle, Bustle, 20 Mar. 2018, www.bustle.com/p/what-are-wonder-womans-powers-the-superhero-has-more-than-a-golden-lasso-60024.

Nerdist. “The Secret of Wonder Woman’s Bullet Blocking! (Because Science w/ Kyle Hill).” YouTube, YouTube, 23 Nov. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiYW_EGzcuw.

 

Photo Source: http://gomerblog.com/2017/10/wonder-woman-bracelets/

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Women in STEM- Florence Bascom

We often know more about male scientists than female scientists. For example, for physic scientists, the first one that comes to our mind is probably Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton. When people are being asked to name a female scientist, almost everybody will say Marie Curie.  However, there are many more female scientists that have done amazing work for our world, but not many people know about them. Below is the first American geologist, and you will find out how she struggled to achieve her goal because of her gender. 

“I have always claimed there was no merit in being the only one of a kind… I have considered pride in the fact that some of the best work done in geology today be women, ranking with that done by men, has been done by my students…”


Name: Florence Bascom

Occupation: Geologist and Educator

Born: July 14, 1862

Died: June 18, 1945

Childhood

Florence Bascom was born on July 14, 1862 in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Her father, John Bascom, was initially a professor at Williams College and in 1874, he became the president of University of Wisconsin. Her mother, Emma Curtiss Bascom was a women’s rights activist involving in the suffrage movement. One interesting fact is that one year after her father was employed, the university began accepting women. Since both of her parents were teachers and supporters of women’s rights, she was encouraged to pursue education at a very young age.

Education

In 1877, she enrolled in the University of Wisconsin and in 1882, she completed a Bachelor’s degrees in Arts and Letters and Science. Later on in 1887, she was determined to continue getting a Master’s degree in Science. With courage, she kept studying until 1893, when she was the first woman ever to receive PhD at Johns Hopkins University and second woman worldwide that earned PhD in geology.

Occupation

This scientist was considered to be the first American woman geologist. She was also the first woman ever to be hired by United States Geological Survey agency. After receiving a PhD in 1893, she began her career as a teacher at Ohio State University and taught there until 1895. Then, she moved to Bryn Mawr College, where she founded the university geology department. She educated other women in field of geology; that was why after establishing the department, it resulted in “more women geologist in early 20th century than any other U.S. institution, ” stated American Association of University Women (AAUW.)

Accomplishments

During her years as geologist and research scientist, she became known for her work of crystallography and petrography, which is a study of composition, origins, properties, and classification of rock and crystal. She has helped us to understand mountain-building processes and the geology of the Appalachian Piedmont Mountains. Additionally, she was well-known for her work on Mid-Atlantic Piedmont as well as US. Geological Survey Folios on Philadelphia (1909), Trenton (1909), Elkton-Wilmington (1920), Quakertown-Doylestown (1931), Honeybrook-Phoenixville (1938), and some 40 scientific articles on genetic petrographic, geomorphology, and gravels.

Challenges

As an educator and geological survey scientist, she left our generation with a legacy of powerful knowledge about our world. Despite her achievements, she also suffered from gender inequality, especially when she was studying for her PhD in a patriarchal world. During her classes, she had to sit behind a screen because she might “disturb” the male students from learning. Additionally,  she was hardly permitted to use the library, gymnasium, and was forbidden from classrooms that were full of men. Although, she had to fight back against these stereotypes, she was in the top 100 leading geologist in United States until her death in 1945.

Works Cited

Aldoleopoldnaturecenter. “Florence Bascom.” Featured Scientists, 23 Aug. 2016, alncfeaturedscientist.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/florence-bascom/.

Clary, R. M., and J. H. Wandersee. “Great Expectations: Florence Bascom (1842–1945) and the Education of Early US Women Geologists.” Geological Society, London, Special Publications, Geological Society of London, 1 Jan. 2007, sp.lyellcollection.org/content/281/1/123.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Florence Bascom.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 24 Apr. 2009, www.britannica.com/biography/Florence-Bascom.

Photo Source:

 https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_290260

https://www.nps.gov/people/the-stone-lady-florence-bascom.htm