“WOMEN IN SCIENCE”. A DIVULGATIVE COURSE FOR BUSINESS & ADMINISTRATION UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

This work describes the excellent results obtained by the three authors after teaching the 3 ECTS course “Women in Science” for the first time in the academic course 2012/2013. It was offered as an optional subject in the Humanities section for Business & Administration Undergraduate students.
The main objective of the course focused in the description of different scientific women biographies all along the History until the present moment, explaining their scientific achievements in an informative way. Another objective was to improve students’ skills such as teamwork, oral communication and information searching.
To reach these objectives, the students had to participate actively during the course development: attending the different sessions, making an oral presentation in the class and taking part in the course web Forum and other collective activities.

The subject programme can be resumed as follows:
1. First scientific women
2. Scientific women all along the History: Antiquity, Middle Ages, XVI-XX centuries
3. Nobel awards
4. Scientific women nowadays
5. Scientific women in media

Connected to the information exposed in the different teaching sessions, groups of 2 or 3 students presented, in 10 min oral expositions, the following contributions:
- Scientific women in the Modern period
- Scientific men and women in the XIX century
- Biography of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
- Biography of Emmy Noether
- The most remarkable buildings designed by Julia Morgan
- Women awarded with the Hughes Medal by The Royal Society
- Awards achieved by Marie Curie
- History of the Nobel Awards
- Nobel Awards in non-scientific areas
- IG Nobel Awards

Two group activities were proposed and fulfilled in class sessions:
- Presence of women in relevant academic positions in the Madrid Region public Universities
- Discussion about women’s specific skills to develop a career in Science

The students were also asked to take part in a web Forum in the internet institutional application. As a result more than 100 contributions were uploaded. They can be clasified in:
- Biographies
- Awards
- Scientific events
- Social impact
- Gender equality aims
- Acknowledgements

During the 7 weeks of the course teaching, the students have shown a great interest and a willing to get involved in the subject.
The excellent response obtained from this group of not directly related to Science students has encouraged the authors to prepare the present work in acknowledgement to their effort.