Women in Science and Technology： A Story of Mae C. Jemison

Hello everyone and welcome back to Behind the Pages with Maggie, breaking down barriers one story at a time. Today I welcome you to episode 48, where we'll be reading the autobiographical story of Macy Jemison, written by Meg Pincus and illustrated by Elena Beah. Macy Jemison. For those of you who do not know this, she became the first African American woman astronaut. And you will also discover in this story that she's also a doctor, dancer, businesswoman and educator as well. So join with me today in the story to learn about how May went from a child with big dreams to a woman who inspires many. So without further ado, let's get into the story. Big Dreams. Macy Jemison was born in 1956. Times were different then. Women and people of color had few jobs to pick from. Nobody had been to space yet. But May dreamed big dreams. She dreamed of space. I was a young girl who loved to stare up at the stars, May said. I imagined myself going there. First space place. See, May grew up in Chicago. Her family liked to visit the Adler Planetarium. It was the first planetarium in the United States. And May learned about space there. May loved to read science books and play outside. She loved Star Trek, a TV show set in space. She also loved to dance and make art. Her parents loved her curiosity. In kindergarten, May told her teacher she wanted to be a scientist. The teacher asked if she meant a nurse. No, I mean a scientist, May said. She studied hard to become one. May went to high school at age 12. She went to Stanford University to study science at age 16. She was the youngest student in her college classes. Sometimes she was the only female. Sometimes she was the only person of color. May got top grades. She led her own dance show. She also led the Black Student Union. Her big dreams felt possible. And May's favorite science? Well, May studied to be a scientist called an engineer. Engineers want to know why and how things work. They think of new things and build them. Doctor, dancer, astronaut. After college, May wanted to be a doctor or a dancer. So she did both. She became a doctor with a dance studio at home. May volunteered as a doctor in Africa for two years. She had to use old technology to treat six people. She dreamed of bringing the new technology. But May kept thinking about her old dream. I want to go into space, she said. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is where all astronauts in the United States train to go into space. May applied to be a NASA astronaut. Going to space is risky. But this did not stop May. She wanted to try going to space. NASA picked 15 people out of 2,000 applicants. May was one of them. Her dream was coming true. She would train to be the first African-American woman astronaut. May trained for five years. She learned how to move without gravity. She learned how to fly a jet and a space shuttle. She learned how to parachute and scuba dive. And she learned more science and math. And finally, it was time for her to go to space. May went to space with six other astronauts. One was the first Japanese astronaut in space. Two others were the first married astronauts. They flew on the space shuttle Endeavour. May took with her a poster, a flag, and a statue, all representing women of color. I thought it was important, May said. She wanted all people to feel included. From space, May looked back and saw Earth. She saw her hometown. May felt small. She also felt a part of everything. May spent eight days in space. She traveled more than three million miles, almost five million kilometers. May did science experiments on the space shuttle. She studied frogs and motion sickness. The country cheered when Endeavour landed safely. May loved being an astronaut. She got to be the first real astronaut to appear on Star Trek. People were surprised when she left NASA. But May wanted to follow a dream that began when she was a doctor in Africa. She started a company to bring technology to places in need. May also wanted to inspire young people. She began helping teachers and students learn science in new ways. She wrote four science books for kids. She also became a college professor. In 2012, May applied to NASA again. She wanted to join a project called 100 Year Starship. NASA picked May to lead it. She was excited. Her team studies how to travel to distant stars within 100 years. And May still dreams big dreams. She inspires big dreams in others too. Well, that is the end of the story. But before we end, I have something new to introduce to the future episodes of this podcast. I would like to add a list of glossary of words that some of us may not be very familiar with as I read the stories. So here I present to you a list of the glossary of some words in the story that we can learn the definitions of. To begin with, we have applied. The past tense of the word apply, which means to ask for officially. For instance, in a sentence, I can say, May applied for the job of an astronaut at NASA. Our next word is engineer. Engineer is a noun, which means someone who is trained to design and build things. The third word we're going to learn today is experiment, which means tests to try out how things work. For instance, we can say, scientists like May conduct experiments to see how things work. Gravity, the force that pulls things toward the center of Earth and keeps them from floating away. Our fifth word is planetarium, which is a building where the positions of planets, moons and stars are projected onto a curved ceiling. The next word is professor, who is a teacher at a college or university. Our next word is technology, which is machines and equipment developed through science and engineering. For instance, the phones that we use is a technology. Or the computers that we use, they also take part of technology. And our last word of the day is volunteered. It's a past tense of the verb volunteer, but volunteer can also be a noun. Volunteer as a verb means to offer to do a job without pay. For instance, we can say, you are participating in the Red Shield appeal as a volunteer of the organization. Well, that is the end of the episode this week. I really hope that you enjoyed listening to the story and are inspired by the big dreams and determination of Macy Jemison. Thank you very much for joining with me here today for episode 48 of Behind the Pages with Maggie, breaking down barriers one story at a time. I hope to see you soon. Goodbye for now.