What does it take to shoot for the stars when the world tells you to stay grounded? Meet Katherine Johnson, the mathematician whose calculations made the moon landing possible. We'll uncover the untold story of NASA's hidden figures, challenge who gets credited for scientific discovery, and find the hidden figures in our own lives. Then blast off with a rocket-building challenge of your own!

Sarah Breedlove was born the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, lost her mother at seven, and started working before she was ten. By the time she was done, she had built America's first female-owned beauty empire and put her own face on every product. This lesson asks the question at the heart of her story: who gets to decide what is beautiful? Students will analyze beauty ads from Sarah's era to today, make their own self-portraits, walk their neighborhoods looking for problems worth solving, and pitch their ideas to each other. Come ready to see yourself differently.

Frida Kahlo was many things: a daughter of the Mexican Revolution, a survivor of a bus accident, and a painter who creatively visualized her inner world. When illness and injury left her bedridden, she picked up a brush and painted herself into history. Discover how Frida used art to reclaim her body. We will look closely at her paintings to find clues to her life story, tour her legendary Blue House, and then make our own zines filled with self-portraits, pressed flowers, and journal reflections.

Mourning Dove was born Christine Quintasket of the Okanagan people, and she became the first known Native American woman to publish a novel in the English language. At a time when Indigenous stories were only being told by colonizers, she fought to tell them herself. This lesson asks what it means to know the history of the land you live on, and tell your own story. Students will explore the indigenous history of the places they call home, illustrate Mourning Dove's life story, and go outside to make self-portraits that honor the world around them. Come ready to find the story only you can tell.

Step back into the 1970s and explore the Chipko Movement, in which women in the Himalayas protested commercial logging by hugging the large trees that were essential to their food and water systems. Discover the centuries-old history in South Asia of how women have used tree hugging for environmental activism. Connect environmental history to food justice and agricultural labor movements here in California. Then make your own protest posters!