Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born in London into an influential Jewish family. She was a bright child, and from a young age, she attended elite schools, including the Norland Place School, the Lindores School for Young Ladies in Sussex, and St Paul’s Girls’ School, where she was among the few girls to be accepted. There, she demonstrated talent for math, science, and languages. At 18, after graduating with six distinctions, she was granted a scholarship to Newnham College, one of two women’s colleges at Cambridge University, where she majored in physical chemistry. After receiving her BA in 1941, she received a grant to conduct research in physical chemistry at Cambridge. The following year, she gave up her fellowship to contribute to the war effort, joining the British Coal Utilisation Research Association, where she researched the physical chemistry of coal and carbon. Her findings were the basis for her doctoral thesis, and in 1945 she received a doctorate from Cambridge. When WW2 ended, Franklin moved to Paris to work at Jacques Mering’s lab at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimique de l’Etat, studying X-ray diffraction technology and using it for her carbon research. Her discovery of the structural changes of atoms caused by the formation of graphite in heated carbons earned her an international reputation, and her work became part of the mainstream chemistry and physics of carbon and coal. In 1951, at 31, Franklin was awarded a fellowship at the Biophysical Laboratory at King’s College, London. She used X-ray diffraction methods to study the new research field of DNA. Not only she discovered the density of DNA but established its double helix structure. Her groundbreaking work laid the foundations for James Watson and Francis Crick’s research, which defined the spiral consisting of two DNA strands; Along with Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 without giving Franklin any credit for her contributions. In 1953, she began to work at the Crystallography Laboratory at Birkbeck College, London, where she applied her DNA findings to researching the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus. In 1956, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer but continued to work between surgeries and treatments. She died in 1958 at the age of 38.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Rosalind Franklin with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Read more...

Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis, in Dorset, England, which is now part of what is called the Jurassic Coast. Her only education in reading and writing came from attending Sunday school. In her childhood, she and her brother helped her father on his fossil-hunting expeditions and sold their finding to supplement their family income. In 1810, when she was 11 years old, her father died, and she and her brother continued collecting and selling fossils from a stand they set up by a local inn. Most of their collection included invertebrate fossils such as ammonite and belemnite shells. In 1811, Anning’s brother found a 4-foot skull, and within a few months, she found the rest of the 17-feet-long skeleton of what will be later named an Ichthyosaurus, or fish lizard, that lived in the area 201-194 million years ago. The selling of the fossils was the family’s only income, and she devoted herself to this challenging task. It included a daily search on the beach, especially after tides, walking miles under the cliffs, and searching for objects that could lead to a hidden fossil, under the risk of being crushed by fallen masses. She furthered her research beyond the seashore, read any scientific literature she could find, and dissected modern animals to understand better the anatomy of the fossils she had collected. She also wrote her notes and observations on the fossils and made accurate drawings of each and every one of them. Despite Anning’s hard and life-threatening work, the fossils she found and sold were not enough to make ends meet, so in 1820, one of her major clients, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch, purchased several specimens to support her financially and even auctioned off his collection and donated the proceeds to Anning and her family. In 1823, at 24, she uncovered the first complete Plesiosaurus skeleton. After it got authenticated by various scholars, Anning began to receive recognition from the scientific community. Within three years, she saved enough money to open Anning’s Fossil Depot shop. Many geologists and fossil collectors from the UK and abroad came to her shop to view and purchase her findings; some of them accompanied her on her fossil-hunting tours, and many of them did not credit her for her work after they published their conclusions on the specimens she excavated. Over the next decade, Anning uncovered numerous science-changing discoveries, including a flying reptile called a Dimorphodon, which was the first pterosaur specimen found outside German, a long-necked marine reptile called a plesiosaur, and a fish called Squaloraja, which was a member of a transition group between sharks and rays. She was also one of the first to search for coprolites, fossilized poo, which helped analyze dinosaurs’ nutrition. Although she was not admitted into the Geological Society (which did not include women until 1904), many scholars recognized her contribution to the field and came to her help. In 1835, after losing her life savings in a bad investment, her friend and client, the geologist and paleontologist William Buckland, urged the British government and the British Association for the Advancement of Science to give her a civil list pension as a recognition of her contributions to the science of geology. The yearly £25 she received was her only financial security. In 1846, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, the Geological Society raised money to help her with the medical expenses. She died at the age of 47 after dedicating her life to the science of paleontology. Her discoveries provided evidence for species’ extinction and helped develop the theory of evolution. Read more...

Augusta Ada King was born in London, England, the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron with his wife, the Baroness Anne Isabella Noel Byron. Five weeks after she was born, her parents separated, and she moved with her mother to her maternal grandparents in Kirkby Mallory. Lovelace did not connect with her father until he died when she was eight years old. Growing up, her mother insisted that she studied mathematics and science, believing it would prevent her from developing a moody and unpredictable temperament like her father’s. So, from an early age, she was educated by renowned figures, such as the social reformer William Frend, the physician William King, and the astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville. Lovelace became fascinated with numbers and engineering, designing boats and flying machines. At 17, she got introduced to Charles Babbage, a mathematician that later became known as “the father of computers.” Soon he became her mentor, and she studied advanced mathematics and helped him with his research. In the same year, she was presented at Court and became a regular and popular at aristocrat events. Two years later, she married Willia King, and when he was nominated the Earl of Lovelace, she became the Countess of Lovelace. The couple had three children. After her wedding, she continued to develop with Babbage the Analytical Engine device, an early prototype of the modern computer. In 1842, 27 years old Lovelace was asked to translate an article by the Italian Engineer Luigi Menabrea about the Analytical Engine. Her translation included an appendix note, in which she elaborated on the machine’s potential, explaining that in addition to calculating numbers, it can also create art such as music and pictures. The appendix also included a theorized engine process of instruction’s reputation, a method that is known today as Looping. Back then, her work did not get much attention, but centuries after the publication, it became recognized as the first computer algorithm, and she received the long-lost acknowledgment as the first computer programmer. Throughout her life, Lovelace developed and theorized different potential uses of the Analytical Engine. Like the mathematical model of how the brain creates thoughts and the nerves create feelings, which she called “a calculus of the nervous system.” She died at the age of 36 from uterine cancer.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Ada Lovelace with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Read more...