Hall of Fame Scientists: Exploring identity through the examples of famous scientists using biology and English

In the Hall of Fame Scientists Unit, we hope introduce to students the concept of success and practice skills they will need for the rest of their high school career. The interdisciplinary unit is meant for ninth graders taking biology and English I. The unit concentrates on foundational writing skills: properly formatted paragraph (A.P.E.), citing scholarly sources, and research. Students should also communicate and apply scientific information extracted from various sources. We hope that after this unit, students will be able to independently recognize different perspectives, develop a cross-cultural understanding of what it means to be young, develop a growth mindset, and recognize the different avenues to success. We approached these transfer goals through a 6 day unit (of 90 minute block classes), in which we taught students skills through a research project. The unit concludes with students presenting a famous scientist’s journey to success, focusing on their years of adolescence and their identity