Culturally relevant teaching benefits science and students

We recently added an extraction of chlorophyll from spinach leaves to the organic lab curriculum at Spelman College, US. One post-lab question for the experiment asked students to compare chlorophyll and melanin, since they are both common pigments. Of all the pigments we could have picked, we deliberately chose melanin as it has an inherent relevance to our students, Black women. These questions are just one part of my work to develop a chemistry curriculum that includes students of colour and women instead of excluding them.

When I was a chemistry undergraduate and graduate student, I felt excluded from the curriculum and from that I often felt conflicted when I tried to explain what I did to my family or anyone from my small town in south Georgia. As a Black woman, chemistry felt so foreign from my background and how I saw myself. I was never sure how to navigate the area between my chemistry life and my actual life.

I now realise that I did not have the tools to communicate with my family and friends because I didn’t have points of reference that really explained what I did. Of course, my training included communication to different audiences that were academic and non-academic, however, there is nuance in cultural communication that wasn’t captured in the teaching I received, nor insight into intersectionality or my identity as a Black woman.