*How did we choose our topic?
We discovered the topic of African American women in NASA from the movie Hidden Figures that came out in 2016. We both had known about John Glenn and the Freedom 7 mission, but we never knew the people behind it, or that three of them were African American women by the names of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughn. This movie really opened our eyes to the struggles that these women had to face for equality and the barriers they broke doing it. These extraordinary women proved to the world that women can do what men can do and they are just as or more intelligent than a man can be. We wanted to do a project where women have broken gender barriers and this topic was perfect.
*How did we conduct our research?
Our research began with of course finding out through the movie about these women where we learned the basic information about the topic. Then we did further research online through NASA where we learned about each woman and their accomplishments. We also used other various websites where we found even more information about them, quotes, and technical notes from Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson which is featured in our website. We also read the book Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly and learned even more about the topic.
*How did we choose our category and how did we create our project?
When we were deciding on our category we began to narrow down our options. We did not want to do a performance or documentary, and we could not do a paper because we were working in a group. This left us with a website or an exhibit. Since both of us are busy, we decided that working on a website would allow us to work on our project without having to carry around an exhibit board or meeting up. We have never made a website before but we thought it would be a new and challenging experience for us. It was difficult at first trying to navigate through the website builder, but after a while we figured it out.
*How does our topic relate to the theme?
Our topic, the Afican American women behind the Freedom 7 Mission, relates to breaking barriers in history because these women had to fight against racism and sexism. As African American women in the 1960’s, segregation and the “stay at home mom” were still very common especially in the south. They broke these barriers by becoming the first African American women to become a supervisor, an engineer, and to get credit on a report. They showed that Afican American women could do as much, or more, than white men in the mathematical field.