Unsung Hero Project

Purpose:

1. To promote positive role models in the lives of students

2. To empower students to stand up for what they believe is right

3. To create a personal work of art based on students’ interpretation of an Unsung Heros’ character and actions;

4. To reflect on your experiences by writing an impact paper that articulates your personal journey and interprets their work for the viewer.

I picked Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who was an astronomer in the late 1800s. She discovered that a star's luminosity and pulsation periods are directly related to the star's distance from the earth. Her work was the foundation of Hubble's work and the reason we now know so much about distant stars. It was also unheard of for a woman to be doing that work in that time period, so she must have been a very strong woman. The reason I picked her was the work she did was instrumental in figuring out most of the stuff we know today about stars, and I really like to learn about space. I learned about how Hubble had discovered how the luminosity and Absolute and apparent magnitude of stars related to their distance from Earth, but I never learned that she had been the one his work was based on. It was inspiring to learn about her and her accomplishments, even at a time when women were not really allowed to do things like that.

While creating this I learned how some people's stories can be totally masked by the stories of others. Even though her work was intrinsic to Hubble's work, she received very little, if any credit for it. Instead, we all know the name Hubble, instead of Leavitt. This is not an uncommon event, too often we only hear about certain people's accomplishments, usually a white man's, and he is celebrated and everyone who helped him is forgotten. I think it is something for me to keep in mind as I go through my life, people's successes are not always just them, they most likely had a lot of help. Using other people's work or getting help is not bad in itself, but when they don't receive any credit, that is plagiarizing. This project made me think about how I should always remember to make sure to give people credit and appreciate their help.