Is my teaching gender-fair? A self-assessment questionnaire.

Abstract

The study of inland waters - Limnology - is full of fascinating women who have vastly contributed to our understanding of these valuable ecosystems. Although women’s visibility was low during the early years of Limnology, it has increased over time. Nowadays, women represent half of the early-career limnologists in Europe. However, as in many other fields, their scientific contributions have been traditionally neglected from schools to universities (i.e., the Matilda effect). The project “Gender LimnoEdu”, developed by the Gender&Science AIL group and funded by EGU (2020), aims to increase the visibility of women in Limnology and related subjects - such as Ecology, Hydrology or other Geosciences - in academic courses and lectures. We have created a set of online ready-to-use resources: (1) a self-evaluation form to detect gender biases and raise self-awareness for teachers of Limnology and Geosciences courses (the form is applicable to a wide range of courses and disciplines), (2) teaching nutshells highlighting key female limnologists (and their history) to help lecturers to acknowledge the role of women in Limnology in their courses, and (3) a complete teaching unit about the past and present situation of women in the field of Limnology. All these resources are freely available (https://www.genderlimno.org). Here, we will present this toolbox of resources and guide you on how to use them for your teaching needs. Moreover, we will share the preliminary results of the self-evaluation form to showcase how gender-fair Limnology lessons in high-education courses are. We welcome everybody to take it! https://www.genderlimno.org/gender-fair-lessons.html