Female Inventors Research Project - Women's History Month Writing Activity

Explore the lives of 24 female inventors and their inventions. Four scaffolded research sheets control the depth of your project. Themed templates with photos make a great display or bulletin board. You can use the activities during Women’s History Month or anytime.

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This activity is scalable. If you're short on time, you can use less pages. Would you like a full-blown research project? Use them all. (Or you can do something more in the middle.)

• For the simplest activity, assign only the first page (basic information).
• To add complexity, also assign the second page (challenges inventors faced and people who helped).
• For the most thorough assignment, add the third page (how history changed the person’s life, how the person changed history).
• A fourth page lets kids focus on one specific invention. They describe it, explain the problem and inspiration behind it, and more.
• A double timeline also helps kids visualize the cause-effect relationships.

It allows you to differentiate. Meet the needs of each you teach! You can assign the same number of research sheets to every student or vary requirements for differentiation.

You can let kids collaborate (or not.) Fourth, fifth, or sixth grade students may work independently, as partners, or in small groups to complete this informative writing project.

Printed pages make a stunning bulletin board or classroom display. They’re perfect for Women’s History Month – or anytime.

• For each person, you'll receive a page with a large picture of the person. Kids simply write important contributions at the bottom. When you only use this page, your class can whip up a beautiful display - or collective biography of female inventors - in one class period.
• Themed writing paper with a small picture of the person lets kids write. Whether it's a bulleted list or research paper, it also makes a great display.
• For the largest bulletin board - and most wow factor - staple both pages side-by-side on a large piece of construction paper.

It's digital too. Want to go paperless? Let them respond with Easel Activities.

Files include everything you need for the project:

• Lesson plans
• List of featured innovators
• 4 sheets of research questions
• Double timeline
• Works cited
• List of transition terms
• 24 contribution pages, each featuring name and large photo
• 24 themed writing pages, each featuring the name and small photo
• Editable rubric

Each student or group explores one inventor:

• Mary Anderson
• Virginia Apgar
• Barbara Askins
• Sarah Tabitha Babbitt
• Patricia Bath
• Melitta Bentz
• Yvonne Brill
• Josephine Cochrane
• Martha Coston
• Gertrude Elion
• Margaret Heafield Hamilton
• Beulah Henry
• Grace Murray Hopper
• Nancy Maria Donaldson Johnson
• Amanda Jones
• Stephanie Kwolek
• Hedy Lamarr
• Ada Lovelace
• Lizzie Magie
• Patsy O'Connell Sherman
• Maria Telkes
• Ruth Wakefield
• Madam C. J. Walker
• Mary Walton

Your students will love this project – and you will too!

• Whether you use it for Women’s History Month, as a social studies project, or to teach research skills, it’s sure to be a hit.
• The pages provide just the right amount of support to keep kids working independently.
• They’ll enjoy learning about female inventors and their inventions.
• Activities address the intent of your ELA standards. For example, if you teach CCSS W.4.7, W.5.7, or W.6.7, you can rest assured that students will master skills necessary to write short research papers.

Although this activity was created for kids in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, the format has worked well for students in middle and high school as well.

Enjoy teaching!

Brenda Kovich