Throughout the year, we highlight the amazing women and girls who have made a difference—in our communities and the world—across all Scholastic Classroom Magazines. Below you’ll find select articles from our March 2019 issues where kids can read about trailblazing women and their contributions during Women’s History Month.
Scholastic News® Edition 2 (March 2019)
Second-graders can read about mathematician Katherine Johnson, who started working at NASA in 1953, during a time where black Americans had trouble finding work due to discriminatory laws. She went on to work for NASA for 33 years and helped calculate the path that sent an astronaut around the Earth in 1962.
Junior Scholastic® (March 11, 2019)
“True Teens of History: The Girl Who Spoke Out for Workers’ Rights”
In the early 1900s, kids as young as 10 worked long hours in factories under dangerous conditions to help provide for their families. Students in grades 6–8 can learn about a 1912 factory incident that injured 12-year-old Camella Teoli and sparked the Lawrence mill-workers’ strike. Factory workers requested higher pay and reduced hours. In March of that year, Camella and other workers met with President William Howard Taft and the U.S. House of Representatives to voice their concerns. Their strike was successful, but it wasn’t until 1940 that Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which limited how kids could be employed and capped the workweek at 40 hours.
The New York Times Upfront® (March 11, 2019)
High-school students will read about five extraordinary women in history: Elizabeth Keckly—a historian, former slave and the dressmaker for First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln—who published a memoir about her life in the White House during Lincoln’s presidency; Charlotte Brontë, the author who wrote some of the most revolutionary novels of the 19th century, including Jane Eyre; Rose Zar, a Jewish woman and holocaust survivor who hid in plain sight thanks to forged papers; Emily Warren Roebling, who oversaw the first steel-wire suspension bridge (the Brooklyn Bridge) to completion after her husband, the chief engineer, became sick; and Jackie Mitchell, the only girl on the roster of an all-male Tennessee baseball team in the 1930s, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig when she was 17.
Scholastic Math® (March 11, 2019)
Students in grades 6–9 can read about 13-year-old Ixhelt Gonzalez, who is making history as the youngest member of Team USA’s wheelchair basketball team. Ixhelt played at the 2018 Wheelchair Basketball World Championships and hopes to get to the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
Scholastic Art® (March/April 2019)
This feature story for students in grades 7–12 follows two generations of the Saar family. Betye Saar and her daughters, Lezley and Alison, tell stories through their art, confronting racial stereotypes, exploring their personal identities and challenging political and social issues. Betye, Lezley and Alison use found objects and mixed media to create sculptures, illustrations and reimagined works.
For more information and articles that spark curiosity, inspire empathy and ignite a passion for learning from Scholastic Classroom Magazines, including stories about inspiring women, past and present, visit www.scholastic.com/magazines.
