Activity 2 Hidden figures movie club

Hidden figures

Objective: Student will explore and analyze the impact of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson in the movie Hidden Figures and connect their contribution to real world STEM advancements and social change at NASA through reading and discussion.

Materials:

Movie clip or full movie Hdden Figures

Chart paper or presentation tools

Research material (books, articles, internet access)

Handout with discussion questions

Activity1:-Movie clip analysis

Watch selected scenes that highlight key moments (e.g Katherine Johnson calculating trajectories, Dorothy Vaughan learning FORTRAN, Mary Jackson fighting for education rights).

Discuss as a class

• What challenges do the women face?
• How do they overcome obstacles?
• How do their work contribute to space exploration?

Activity2: Research and presentation

Divide students into small groups, each assigned one of the three women. Each group will

• research their assigned figure's real life contributions
• compare movie portrayls vs historical facts
• create a short presentation (poster, slide or skit)

Activity3: Think like a NASA mathematician

Students will solve a simplified trajectory problem using basic algebra and physics.

Example: " If a spacecraft travels X distance in Y time, what is its speed?"