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Check out this unit written by Gretchen Kraig-Turner (teacher in Burlington-Edison)

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What My Science Students Learned from the Story of Henrietta Lacks

By Gretchen Kraig-Turner

Illustrator: Keith Henry Brown

Every year when I distribute The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot to my biotechnology class, I am greeted with "Turner, this isn't English class!" And every year I tell my students, "I promise you: This book is going to change the way you think about science. Give it a chance."

I make this promise to my students because I know the beginning of the story will pique their interest. Skloot brilliantly describes the beginnings of both Henrietta Lacks, the woman, and HeLa, the first immortal cell line, in a way that gains the interest of a wide swath of students. Henrietta's daughter, Deborah, is quoted on the first page: "When I go to the doctor for checkups I always say my mother was HeLa. They get all excited, tell me stuff like how her cells helped make my blood pressure medicines and anti-depression pills . . . but they don't never explain more than just sayin, Yeah, your mother was on the moon, she been in nuclear bombs, and made that polio vaccine. . . . But I always thought it was strange, if our mother's cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can't afford to see no doctors? I used to get so mad. . . . But I don't got it in me no more to fight. I just want to know who my mother was."

Students who take my class out of a pure interest in science get what they came for in the descriptions of lab science and discoveries about cells and cancer. And, students who take my class because a family member or teacher said they should be in the biotech program get drawn in by family stories, the tales of Henrietta being shuffled around amongst family members and her children growing up without a mother - all with the ease of reading a well-told, captivating story. And students who have not seen themselves in science history hear the voices and stories of Black women front and center - sometimes for the first time - from the very beginning of this book.

When students come back the second day after getting the book, they are excited, saying: "OK, this book is alright" and "I didn't think I'd like it this much" and "She's Black?" and "Wait, her cells are still alive?"

Rebecca Skloot was a high school student at an alternative school in Portland, Oregon, when she first heard a story about a Black woman whose cells have immeasurably changed our understanding of the very basics of biology. Skloot was taking a community college course when an instructor mentioned Henrietta Lacks during a lecture on cell division. He told the class that Henrietta's cells had led to great discoveries, that her cells continued to live decades after her death in labs around the world, that her cells were the first to do this, to be immortal, and he told the class she was Black. At that point, this was about all that the scientific community really knew of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cancer cells, which grow and divide very quickly and remain a laboratory staple today, would be used to add volumes to our understanding of cells, genetics, and a host of other fundamental areas of science. Skloot remained curious about Ms. Lacks as a person, and went on to write a book that told the story of Henrietta, her family, and how the cells came into the hands of doctors, scientists, and Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951.

Skloot's book on Henrietta Lacks is a fascinating account of her previously hidden story. The writing expertly weaves the journey of the Lacks family's tireless work to uncover the story of Henrietta's cells with both scientific and African American history. The basic narrative is that Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman from Baltimore, sought care for cervical cancer in a segregated hospital, and in the process of doing so, white doctors and scientists took her cancer cells with dubious consent, believing that the patients of the "colored ward" were essentially trading being research subjects for health care. The impacts of this incident specifically, and inequalities in health care more generally, affected Henrietta's children and grandchildren immensely. The importance of her cells to the scientific community cannot be overstated, and yet the Lacks family never saw any of the money generated from the innumerable discoveries from the cells. Henrietta's descendants struggled with poverty, including battles with getting proper health care, and were left in the dark - the consent forms then were rudimentary, at best - about what doctors and scientists both took and found. One can infer that had Henrietta been white with more resources, either her cells would never have been taken in the first place or her family would have received recognition for their mother's profound contribution to science.

The book combines the science behind why her cells are so important with personal narrative in a unique way. As a science teacher in the only majority African American high school in Oregon, I thought my students would find the story an engaging way to learn about cells (particularly cell growth and cancer), how research protocols have evolved over the last 100 years, and about the intersections of institutionalized racism and biomedical history. We typically spend about six weeks on the book, and the richness of the story, both in science content and my students' ability to relate to the Lacks family, make this relatively long unit worthwhile.
Reading the Book to Teach the Book
Before reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I had never considered using a book that more resembles a novel than an academic science text in my classes. I initially thought we could maybe read a section of the book before doing some more serious work on how cells grow. The story would be a small feature of a cell unit, not cells being a section of a book unit. But, after reading the book, I couldn't pick out just one section or one passage and contain the powerful story to a mere sidenote to a cell unit.

As a science teacher, I had no idea how to teach books - this wasn't ever addressed in our pedagogy courses, nor did I have examples from other science teachers of how to do this. I wanted the process to be familiar to my students, so I worked with English teachers at my school to learn how they taught books. I learned how to do dialogue journals and teach students to take notes with a final paper in mind. When I read the book, I thought about what I would do if I were asked to write a paper on the story, and I picked several themes: Medical Apartheid (a term coined by Harriet Washington to describe racial inequity in health care), Informed Consent, Lab Science, and Scientific Discoveries. Then I re-read the book, this time keeping a dialogue journal with quotes on one side and my comments on the other. I divided my notebook into five sections with the themes listed above and a fifth one titled "Family." I created discussion questions for each chapter and found supplemental readings about cell culturing, cancer growth, and rights to one's own tissues and genetic codes (in subsequent years, the amount of supplemental articles on Henrietta exploded and this became easier). I also kept an eye out for when I could do labs alongside the reading to bring to life what the scientists did in the book.

As the unit developed over the years, more research has come out about Henrietta's cells, including bioethical violations such as publishing the genetic code of HeLa (which was a violation of her family's rights to their own genetic codes). Continuing to monitor the New York Times science section (where Rebecca Skloot has published updates to the initial narrative, including "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Sequel" in 2013) helps tremendously with making sure the supplemental readings I give my students are current.

Other supplemental materials stemmed from students wanting to know more about the examples of medical apartheid discussed in the book. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a long-term study conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service on untreated syphilis in Black men that went on decades after the cure was found, is referenced several times throughout the book, but the most chilling descriptions of how African American people were treated comes in a chapter called "Night Doctors." This chapter outlines much of why African American people have reasons to distrust the medical establishment and includes stories of enslaved people being used for "gruesome research," Black people being kidnapped off the streets to be used in medical studies and as cadavers, and more recent studies looking for genes that could predict criminal behavior by studying Black families. Dr. Harriet Washington's book Medical Apartheid is an excellent resource for students wishing to learn more, as is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
Cell Culture
Cell culturing is central to the beginning of the book. Scientists tried for decades to grow human cells outside of the human body before finding Henrietta's immortal cells. While we obviously can't grow human cells in the classroom, the process of even much more basic cell culturing was new to my students. I designed a lab on yeast culturing, a eukaryotic cell often used in genetics experiments, that we did as we read about the first ventures of human cell culture. The lab was a simple exploration into how to maximize growth and minimize contamination. And the supplies to do such labs are actually relatively inexpensive. I used baker's yeast from the grocery store for my cell source, and ordered basic petri dishes and a yeast-peptone-dextrose (YPD) media. Students made a media with 25g of YPD and 10-15g of agar per liter of distilled water and poured this into the petri dishes, which then sat overnight to solidify. We mixed a small amount of the yeast with table sugar in warm water (just as you'd do when baking bread) and then poured that mixture onto the plates. We grew the yeast at both room temperature (25 C) and in an incubator at 37 C (human body temperature). When growth didn't occur or contamination from bacteria took over the yeast growth, I tell my students, "These issues are the same as what the scientists in the book faced. This is real science." We work to problem-solve the issues and compare growth at different temperatures. We also discuss how contamination occurs and why sterile environments are so important. I ask, "Why do you think contamination can occur if we keep the lid open too long?" or "How come yeast grows best at body temperature instead of room temperature?"
Teaching About Cancer
As we continued to read the book, I found that students needed to know more about cancer and what happens when the mechanisms of the cell cycle go awry. My students had a lot of questions: "Why can't the scientists use any of her cells? Why only the cancer ones?" I answer that "Only the cancer ones have the mutation that causes the cells to divide uncontrollably." Another student, Ny'osha, wanted to know "If Deborah (her daughter) gets cancer, will those cells be immortal too?" "Not necessarily," I responded. "This could depend on if her cancer was purely genetic or due to viruses." And Marti, somewhat indignantly, wanted to know "If her husband hadn't been messing around, would Henrietta have even gotten that cancer?" "Probably not!" I answered. "Let's talk about oncoviruses!"

The first year I taught this unit I did a review on mitosis and then directed my students to the National Institutes of Health's websites on cancer. Each student did a worksheet on mitosis and wrote a generalized summary of how cancer works. Henrietta's cancer was more robust than most cancers, the vast majority of which would not survive outside the human body. The disruptions to the cell cycle that her cancer caused are representative of many cancers and it's important for the students to understand how cancer cells generally differ from healthy cells. For the last few years of teaching this unit, I also use an article titled "UW researchers report on genome of aggressive cervical cancer that killed Henrietta Lacks" and show a PowerPoint on HPV and cervical cancer by Lydia Breen and Rebecca Veilleux from an MIT/HHMI Summer Teacher Institute.

My students write short responses to questions such as: What was the "perfect storm" that went wrong in Henrietta's cervical cells? What is a haplotype and what unique information does it give scientists? Why was publishing Henrietta's genome problematic for her family? Why must participants give materials (like cells) for research to occur? Explain the relationship between telomeres and cancer cells' immortality.
Bioethical Issues
The cell culturing and cancer portions take up about the first four of the six-week unit. I teach these as short units that cover basic reviews of cell function and division. As well as diving deeper into those subjects, we set aside time to have discussions around the bioethical questions raised in the book. Discussions take place as a whole class and in small reading groups that I establish when we first start the book. The reading groups meet weekly and discuss a set of questions (some of which are from Random House's Teacher Guide) for each section. I write out the questions and give them to the students before they read the corresponding chapter. In these groups, the students are able to relate the science they learned in class to the Lacks family story. The book details Henrietta's life, from being raised, along with her cousins, by her grandfather after losing her mother at age 4, to having five children with one of these cousins. Her life started on a tobacco farm in rural Virginia and ended in Baltimore.

While Henrietta is most famous for her immortal cells, my students relate to her on a human level. One student, Asianique Savage, opened her final essay with: "A woman with brown skin as smooth as the back of a chocolate bar, thick long hair as strong as rope, who made sure her nails were always done, painted with bright red nail polish, was brought into the world August 1, 1920." This sentence is not what one typically thinks of as "science writing," and yet it captures how my students see Henrietta.

Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's youngest daughter, is a central character in the book. Her anger at losing her mother and not fully understanding the science behind why her mom is so famous creates some tension throughout the book. In response to the question "What does Deborah mean when she says (p. 235), 'I do want to go see them cells, but I'm not ready yet'?" Keisha said that she sees "why Deborah is always so mad and she's stressed all the time. She doesn't have her mom, the doctors disrespect her and her family, and they're poor while all those people make money off of drug patents. She didn't even really know what a cell was, let alone why her mother's were still alive. It's complicated for her."

Through the story of the Lacks family, my students are also able to explore the deeper questions of how race intersects with medical history as a whole. Questions like: "Describe HL's medical history. Why do you think she cancelled appointments, stopped treatments, and refused tests?" "How were HL's tissues obtained? Did she consent? Does it matter?" and "Why did the doctors in the '50s use patients from public wards for research?" were designed to get students to think about how Henrietta, as a Black woman, could have been fearful of going to the hospital. Henrietta's distrust in medical institutions is still seen today in Black culture as described by Vann R. Newkirk II in a 2016 article in The Atlantic titled "A Generation of Bad Blood":

Research has long suggested that the ill effects of the Tuskegee Study extend beyond those men and their families to the greater whole of Black culture. Black patients consistently express less trust in their physicians and the medical system than white patients, are more likely to believe medical conspiracies, and are much less likely to have common, positive experiences in health-care settings. These have all been connected to misgivings among Black patients about Tuskegee and America's long history of real medical exploitation of Black people.

My students understand this at a personal level: "They would never take the cells from a white woman like that," claims Ty. "But look at what was accomplished with them. They shoulda asked her and gotten her permission though," adds Aliyah. Near the end of the book, I ask my students, "Do the scientists owe the Lacks family anything? Does the lack of consent impact your thoughts on reparations to the family?" Many of my students wrestled with this question as part of their final paper.
The Culminating Paper
Once we are about two-thirds through the book, I have the students start to work on their final papers. The students' composition books were divided into the same categories that are choices for their final papers: Medical Apartheid, Informed Consent, Lab Science, Scientific Discoveries, and a fifth category, Family, as this theme is so critical to the story that my students could not write any paper without including the story of the Lacks family. As they read the book they jotted down their notes in these five sections, and for most students, one of the categories eventually emerged as the one they are most interested in. This category was then the students' focus as they finished the book. We use class time for writing the five- to 10-page final paper, and I encourage students to utilize their reading groups - and me - to go through outlines and drafts.

Many students pick one of the first two themes: Informed Consent and Medical Apartheid. This speaks to how my students related and were interested in the parts of the book that spoke directly to racial biases in medical care and research.

The criteria for these themes are prescribed in my directions to the students. Each section has four to five content-based criteria. Many of my students are not used to writing papers that blend both academic and conversational voices, and I have noticed that without content-specific criteria, my students tend to leave the science out of the science papers!

I have found the students are much more comfortable deeply explaining the family issues and generalizing the science content. But the papers that are written using the content-based criteria sheets reflect the understanding of the undeniable contributions to science from using Henrietta Lacks' cells with the perspective and acknowledgement that the matriarch of an African American family is at the very center of these scientific advances and discussions.

Here is an excerpt from Desiree' DuBoise's paper:

The misuse of Henrietta Lacks' cells, as well as the mistreatment of her family, was unethical. A big reason for the lack of information given to the Lacks family about the use of Henrietta's cells was the fact that there was no precedent for how to go about using and profiting from cell research; it hadn't been done before. The fact that the cells came from a poor Black woman only heightened the unlikelihood of doctors and researchers taking time out to meet the needs of the family (Johns Hopkins). The name of the owner of the cells went unknown for decades. The HeLa cells were thought to belong to either Henrietta Lacks, Helen Lane, or Helen Larson (Skloot, 1). Many have wondered why none of Henrietta's family recognized her picture in articles written or knew about the studies using her cells. The Lacks family was poor and Black and living in the South; most of them had no more than a middle school education, so they wouldn't have had access to articles and journals that were talking about the use of Henrietta's cells.

Giving the cells a name and a story validated my students in a way that is not often seen in our science classrooms. Black students are frequently pushed out of classrooms in a multitude of ways; we need to seek ways to bring Black students' voices into every subject, and particularly into STEM classes where Black students are underrepresented. Terri Watson, in an Education Week web series on "Black Girls and School Discipline," said, "I think Black girls are seen as either invisible or they're problematized." Henrietta Lacks and the story of her cells exemplifies both. As a Black woman, Henrietta was separated into the "colored ward" of the hospital where her cells were seen as payment for her health care, and her cells were identified as hers only after decades of invisibility. Dedicating significant time to learn the story of a Black woman to whom biomedical research owes a great deal was time well spent. What we learned was more than the sum of Henrietta's story and the science content of the book.

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A science teacher includes Black voices and Black history in her classroom by building curriculum around The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In doing so, she shows how nonfiction books should not be relegated to language arts but can be effective in a science classroom.

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This is a unit for 5th grade students where students explore the driving question: How can we become better protectors of the Earth?

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How can we learn to be better protectors of the Earth?

In this 5th grade STEM Storyline Unit focused around Climate Justice, we present students with the idea of environmental stewardship and restoration. Students learn from communities and activists who are working to protect the Earth against negative human impacts. We believe that a part of STEM literacy is the ability for students to be aware of and think critically about the ways in which we are protecting or disturbing the natural world. We hope to use this unit to amplify the voices of Youth Activists of Color and support your 5th graders in developing their own voices as leaders in their community. The unit culminates with students presenting their learning to their community in order to expand their community's understanding of environmental stewardship.

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In this 5th grade STEM Storyline Unit focused around Climate Justice, we present students with the idea of environmental stewardship and restoration. Students learn from communities and activists who are working to protect the Earth against negative human impacts.

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Medial Apartheid: Teaching the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

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Medial Apartheid: Teaching the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

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By Gretchen Kraig-Turner

When I think of Black Lives Matter, what comes to mind first is police brutality and the resulting lost lives of young men and women in recent times. But as a science teacher, I know that racism in the United States also has roots that extend deep into the history of medical research.

Medical apartheid, the systematic oppression and exclusion of African Americans in our healthcare systems, has existed since the time of slavery and continues today in medical offices and research universities. What care people receive, what diseases are studied, and who is included in research groups are still delineated by race.

The term medical apartheid is explained in Harriet Washington's 2007 work, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Washington documents how "diverse forms of racial discrimination have shaped both the relationship between white physicians and black patients and the attitude of the latter towards modern medicine in general."

Medical apartheid is a reality that many of my students and their families face. I teach in the only predominantly African American high school in Oregon. Being talked down to by doctors is a common experience, as is leaving the doctor's office without receiving adequate care. One of my students told us that her uncle's treatment for a heart condition was so substandard, her family sued the hospital for discrimination. Critically examining the history of medical research is a way to bring the experiences of my students and their families into the classroom, and a way to connect our study of bioethics to the often hidden history of African American men and women who fought for their dignity and rights against a medical system that treated them like lab rats.

So I begin my Research and Medicine course, a senior-level course in our Health Sciences and Biotechnology Program, with an exploration of bioethics, a theme that continues throughout all of the units. We focus on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (TSS), a chapter of scientific and medical history rarely discussed in high school. Particularly as a white educator, I am conscious that leading the school year with a unit on a deeply painful example of Black oppression needs to be done with care. is is the capstone course of the program, and I already know the students when the class starts. Without a level of trust and mutual respect already established, this unit would not be as successful. If I did not know my students well, I would wait until later in the year, after a safe space had been created. Another reason to wait is that the TSS leads to discussions about cell types (particularly types of bacteria) and epidemiology, which are typically covered later in the year.

Day one of the unit starts with me asking a simple question: "In what ways are you in control of your health and in what ways are you not in control?" I list a couple examples: "I'm in control of how often I exercise but I'm not in control of air pollution in my neighborhood." The students do a think-pair-share with the question, scribbling down answers and then sharing with their lab bench partner.

As we start to answer the question as a whole class, I write their answers on the whiteboard under the headers "In Control" and "Not in Control." Pretty quickly, someone disagrees about the appropriate header.

"One way I'm in control of my health is what food I eat," Robert says. I write "foods" under In Control.

Charene asks, "What if good food isn't available?"

Kia yells out, "Our school lunch is terrible but it's free. Is that a choice? I don't eat that junk!"

After more examples are generated, I ask: "Who does have a choice about what food they eat? Why do some people have different levels of access to doctors? How come some neighborhoods have better air quality? Why can't some people go running safely at night?"

Soon nothing in the In Control column is safe from my kids' scrutiny. We talk about each item through a social justice lens. For example, going to the doctor regularly is tied to insurance-which is tied to job and education level-and access to transportation. Exercising is linked to living in a safe neighborhood, child-care, money for gyms, air quality, and concern about what police see when a middle-aged white woman is running vs. a Black or Brown youth. The class inevitably concludes that health and healthcare are a complex mix of choice and circumstance, and that those with more social and economic power have a different level of choice.

Sade sums it up: "None of this is a choice for poor people, just for people who can buy whatever they choose, and who has that kind of money isn't always fair."
The Tuskegee Mixer
My students' insights on these intersections in our healthcare system lead into a mixer on the TSS. The TSS exemplifies how race, class, and healthcare have intersected in this country, all themes the students raised during our warm-up.

The "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male" (now formally known as the "U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee"), which began in 1932 in rural Alabama, spanned most of the 20th century. African American men with syphilis (the sexually transmitted disease or a different strain of the bacteria known as yaws) were observed, yet received no treatment. They were denied standard treatment-heavy metal treatments at first, and later penicillin-and forbidden to seek medical treatment elsewhere. The architects of the study went as far as barring the men from the World War II draft, where they would have been treated with penicillin. The study continued into the early 1970s, when a whistle-blower, fed up with trying to get the attention of his superiors, took the story to a journalist. After the article appeared, Congress held hearings that suspended the study and led to passage of the National Research Act, which includes a mandated code of ethics for research on human subjects.

"We're going to look at a time in medical history when informed consent didn't exist," I tell the students as I introduce the mixer. I give each student the role of a study subject, a doctor, a public health official, a widow, or a journalist. There are roles that show the damage inflicted, and also roles that show the resistance and whistleblowing that ultimately exposed and ended the study. For example:

Charles Pollard was a participant who later became an activist:

I am a Macon County farmer, and I started in the Tuskegee Study in the early 1930s. I recall the day in 1932 when some men came by and told me I would receive a free physical examination if I came by the one-room school near my house. So I went on over and they told me I had bad blood. . . . And that's what they've been telling me ever since.

I was at a stockyard in Montgomery, and a newspaper woman started talking to me about the study in Tuskegee. She asked me if I knew Nurse Rivers. That's how I discovered I was one of the men in the study. Once I found out how those doctors at Tuskegee used the African American men of Macon County in their study, I went to see Fred Gray. He was Rosa Parks' and Martin Luther King Jr.'s attorney. He took our case and sued the federal government for using us as guinea pigs without our consent.

Being in this study violated my rights. After I found out about the real purpose of the study, I told reporters, "All I knew was that [the doctors and nurses] just kept saying I had the bad blood-they never mentioned syphilis to me, not even once."

Other roles include Nurse Eunice Rivers and Dr. Eugene Dibble, both African Americans who worked as researchers in the study, supporting the study perhaps as a way to bring both money and prestige to Tuskegee. Roles of the white doctors who designed and orchestrated the study include upsetting quotes. For example, Dr. Thomas Murrell, an advisor to the study's leaders, said:

So the scourge sweeps among them. Those that are treated are only half cured, and the effort to assimilate into a complex civilization drives their diseased minds until the results are criminal records. Perhaps here, in conjunction with tuberculosis, will be the end of the Negro problem. Disease will accomplish what man cannot.

Once the students read, understand, and are prepared to play the person in their role sheet, I ask everyone to walk around the room, telling people who they are and learning about other participants in the drama.

Their initial curiosity quickly changes to disbelief for some and hardening anger for others. They fill out a question sheet as they meet the other characters, and then spend a few minutes reflecting on questions raised by the mixer, and what surprised, angered, or left them hopeful. "Why did they do this? What did they learn?"

"Why didn't they give the men penicillin?"

"How long did this last?"

Students start to make the connections between the study and the pre-World War II eugenics movement they studied previously. As David points out, "This is a lot like what the Nazi doctors did in Auschwitz."
Whistle-blowers
Then we transition into reading the article that brought national attention to the study. In 1966, Peter Buxtun, a U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) venereal disease investigator, tried to alert his superiors about the immorality and lack of scientific ethics of the study, but they would not listen. In 1968, William Carter Jenkins, an African American statistician at PHS, called for an end to the study in a small anti-racist newsletter he founded. Nothing changed. Finally, Buxtun went to the mainstream press, and Associated Press journalist Jean Heller broke the story in the Washington Evening Star. She begins:

Washington, July 25 [1972]-For 40 years the United States Public Health Service has conducted a study in which human beings with syphilis, who were induced to serve as guinea pigs, have gone without medical treatment for the disease and a few have died of its late effects, even though an effective therapy was eventually discovered.

Officials of the health service who initiated the experiment have long since retired. Current officials, who say they have serious doubts about the morality of the study, also say that it is too late to treat the syphilis in any surviving participants.

The students also read the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's description of syphilis, including the progression of the disease and recommended treatment, and a summary I created of other relevant information.

Then I assign some writing: Using these resources and what you learned from meeting everyone in the mixer, write a first-person testimony that could have been used at the congressional hearings that followed Heller's story. You can be the same person you portrayed in the mixer, or someone else. Explain why you think the study happened, your understanding of the disease itself, and if reparations are appropriate or not. Explain your reasons.

These are quick-writes, not final pieces, but aimed at getting students to understand the human lives behind the medical facts. Lejay writes from the perspective of a widow of one of the men in the study:

I am Ruth Fields and I became a widow during the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. My husband passed away from the effects of syphilis. . . . In the early 1920s, syphilis was a major health issue and concern. In 1932, a study was conducted of 399 men with syphilis and 201 without, the men were given occasional assessments, and were told they were being treated. In 1936, local physicians were asked to help with the study, but not treat the men, and to follow the men until death. Penicillin became a treatment option for syphilis but the men in the study couldn't receive it. . . .

I endured so much hurt, pain, and loss because of this study, and I just want everyone who was involved to be punished for their actions, because they hurt and killed and destroyed so many lives.

Shirene writes from the point of view of one of the men in the study:

I am Roy Douglas. Poor, uneducated African American men like myself experienced an outbreak of syphilis. We were sent to hospitals for having "bad blood." Doctors didn't know how the STD worked, the side effects, or the symptoms. To get the information that they needed, they used us as test dummies. Over 400 of us were denied help, medicine, and the proper treatment for years. Some men suffered from mild symptoms like rashes, then spots appeared on the surface of their skin. With time, their nerves, brains, and more shut down. . . . In 1945, penicillin was finally accepted as a treatment for syphilis.

After more than 30 years of researching, the study finally ended in 1972. I personally feel like the study was a small version of a genocide. . . . It was unnecessary and wrong to use poor, Black men as guinea pigs for experiments. Out of the whole dehumanizing study, the only positive outcome was the cure. ere should have been more rules or procedures set up to maintain the health of the sick men. No one deserves to die when there is some type of medicine to cure them. I believe that every person that lent a hand in the study should have gone to prison.

Where Do We Go from Here?
There is so much of the TSS that is hard to swallow. The sheer length-more than 40 years-is astounding for any longitudinal study, let alone one that watched men die from a brutal infection that attacks the nervous system. The fact that researchers went to great lengths to keep the men from finding out that there was a simple cure shows the purpose was not to find treatment. That the study continued throughout and after the Civil Rights Movement is perplexing and contrary to a narrative of racial equity so often spun in history books. But my students' anger is often more personal.

The students are not paranoid. The United States has a history of funding unethical studies on vulnerable populations. We read articles about similar cases in which U.S. doctors and scientists took advantage of vulnerable populations-from sterilizing female prisoners in California to infecting prisoners in Guatemala with syphilis.

It's at this point that I ask students to write up their own code for bioethical human research: If you were in charge of how and what research could be conducted, what limitations would you place? How would you define informed consent? How would you guarantee informed consent? Is anyone off limits? If not, how do you guarantee that they are not being taken advantage of by unscrupulous researchers?

After writing their own codes, I distribute copies of the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report. The students then write a reflection on how their codes differ and what might be missing from each of the lists: How is your code similar to the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report? How is it different? What did you mention that should be added to those codes?

With their bioethical codes hung in the hallway leading to my classroom and armed with the knowledge that science isn't always ethical, I give students their first major assignment of the year: a research paper on a bioethics topic of their choice.

Before we began this course with a study of the TSS, I read papers about artificially extending life or genetically modified creatures that sounded more like science fiction than real issues affecting my students and their families. But now that we begin with an exploration of bioethics rooted in the history of the TSS, the papers have become more interesting and personal. I still give the students a list of bioethics topics from the CDC website, but through conversations in class and students opening up about their own experiences, the topics have increased in relevance and student engagement. Now students write about why mortality rates of cancers are different for people of different races. They explore how U.S. scientists have engineered studies taking place in Latin America. One young woman wrote a history of gynecology in the United States, from unanesthetized surgeries of women who were enslaved through much more recent forced sterilizations of women of color. Another student wrote about medical experiments by Japanese doctors in Chinese prisoner of war camps during World War II. They now write about subjects that tomorrow's doctors and researchers need to understand in order to combat the idea that the health and healthcare of some do not matter as much as that of others.
RESOURCES Tuskegee Syphilis Study Mixer Materials [PDF]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2016. Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs): Syphilis. cdc.gov/std/syphilis.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2016. U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee: The Tuskegee Timeline. cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm.

Tuskegee University. 2016. About the USPHS Syphilis Study.

tuskegee.edu/about_us/centers_of_excellence/bioethics_center/about_the_usphs_ syphilis_study.aspx.

Washington, Harriet. 2006. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. First Anchor Books.

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Medical Apartheid: Teaching the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

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Students in a bioethics class are horrified to learn about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, during which African American men were denied treatment for syphilis. They draw connections to other medical injustices and write their own codes of ethics for medical research.

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Science Education Partnership, Free Units

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Science Education Partnership, Free Units

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Elephant Conservation
Race, Racism, and Genetics
Covid 19 Testing and Inequalities
DNA Exonerations

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Fred Hutch is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) Employer. We are committed to cultivating a workplace in which diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed and respected. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, c…

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https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7046077

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The medical exploitation of African Americans over centuries has caused many black patients to mistrust the medical industry. Author Harriet Washington discusses the history and impact of medical abuse with Farai Chideya.

Washington is a bioethicist and author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present.

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'Medical Apartheid' Tracks History of Abuses

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The medical exploitation of African Americans has caused mistrust among patients and the medical industry. Author Harriet Washington talks about centuries of abuse documented in her book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present.

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This is a great curriculum that helped me build a unit on the Salish Sea.

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What is it?

Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum is a culmination of seven workshops around the Salish Sea where marine educators, indigenous and western scientists, and classroom teachers shared lessons, activities, games, and pedagogy around learning science and applying traditional ecological knowledge to heal the sea with the sea as our classroom and teacher and kids' curiosity as our guide.

The curriculum is built upon our popular kids' book, Explore the Salish Sea: A Nature Guide for Kids and is supported by marine, estuarine, and watershed experts in your own community ( find them in the map!).

Each unit is customizable to support connecting kids with ecosystems in your own Indigenous or non-Indigenous community. We will work in partnership to select and customize the right path for your school. Units are also aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and BC's Science Curriculum. Units contain all of the necessary tools needed to guide your students through place-based and hands-on exploration and discovery.

Click here to learn about the book. If you would like books donated to a low-income school or program or a Tribal or First Nations school, please reach out!

We will continue to build and revise with the generous input of Marine Educators and Classroom Teachers like you. Please share ideas and resources with our Education Coordinator, Mira, at mdlutz@ucdavis.edu.

Curriculum is aligned with both Next Generation Science Standards and BC's New Curriculum. Links in each unit

Before you launch:

1) read the Curriculum Overview to get the big picture and tips for science and traditional knowledge.

2) Register for the curriculum units (see form below).

3) Take your pre-curriculum teacher survey (online) and administer your pre-curriculum student survey to your class (print or online).

After you finish:

Take your post-curriculum teacher survey (online) and administer your post-curriculum student survey to your class (print or online).

Modify each of these to reflect your local community and your unique learning goals.

Introduction

Southern Resident Killer Whale Task Force

This unit introduces the overall phenomenon for the curriculum-the endangered status of the Southern Resident Killer Whales - and puts students in the roles of working group members in the Governor-appointed taskforce to identify the biggest threats and recommend solutions to save the whales.

Chapter 1

Ocean Motion

Make a map of the Salish Sea to build on in each subsequent unit then explore physical, chemical, and biological oceanography that scaffolds further learning with foundational concepts of density, circulation, and buoyancy.

Chapter 2

Stormwater

Review the water cycle, learn the parts of a watershed and the effects of erosion and pollution, then learn ways of purifying these waters before they enter our streams and estuaries to safeguard these ecosystems for marine life and people.

Chapter 4

Tide Out, Table Set

Intertidal life is adapted to harsh conditions caused by the interplay of the Earth, moon, and sun.Learn about food webs, food pyramids, ecosystem interactions, and adaptations to survive the tough, intertidal life caused by tides, and this interplay of heavenly bodies.

Chapter 8

Salish Sea Heroes

The culmination of the Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum is improving the environment in and for your own community. Students will review the science and traditional ecological knowledge-based recommendations they have made throughout their explorations, then put these into action in your own community. Raingardens, beach clean-ups, schoolyard wildlife habitats, and salmon and forage fish habitat restoration projects are all examples of how students became Salish Sea Heroes so far.

Salish Sea Splash

An 12-15 day, student-guided exploration of Explore the Salish Sea

Try this shorter option of Explore the Salish Sea to get students' toes wet in place-based science. Unlike the full curriculum, here the students take the helm and teach one another (learning a whole lot in the process!) while the teacher is the guide on the side.

" One look at the beautiful book Explore the Salish Sea and I was sold! We are always looking for ways to integrate science and ELA, embedding science experiences with local environment is always at the top of our priority list. We are excited to embed more learning experiences through the lens of the Salish Sea to help our students understand their local watershed and how it plays a critical role for all plants and animals." - Ryan Patterson, Tacoma Public Schools Elementary Science Instructional Facilitator

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Explore the Salish Sea Curriculum is a culmination of seven workshops around the Salish Sea where marine educators, indigenous and western scientists, and classroom teachers shared lessons, activities, games, and pedagogy around learning science and applying traditional ecological knowledge to heal the sea with the sea as our classroom and teacher and kids' curiosity as our guide.

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We continue to work to improve your shopping experience and your feedback regarding this content is very important to us. Please use the form below to provide feedback related to the content on this product.

Your feedback has been submitted. Fisher Scientific is always working to improve our content for you. We appreciate your feedback.

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preparation of human chromosome spreads lab investigations - education supplies

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biology and biotechnology classroom products

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Preparation of Human Chromosome Spreads Lab Investigations - Education Supplies, Biology and Biotechnology Classroom Products

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We continue to work to improve your shopping experience and your feedback regarding this content is very important to us. Please use the form below to provide feedback related to the content on this product. Your feedback has been submitted. Fisher Scientific is always working to improve our content for you.

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https://store.urbanintellectuals.com/shop/black-history-flashcards-vol-1/

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Sale!

$24.99 $14.99

Urban Intellectuals is proud to present volume 1 of our Black History Flash Cards, designed to combat the miseducation and suppression of Black achievements around the globe.

This volume's 52 cards gives a strong foundation to the many untold stories, achievements, and unknown people that have given shape, color, and definition to the worlds of academia, science, civil rights, business, the arts, and more.

Enjoy learning about the revolutionary contributions of our people. Take pleasure in sharing all that you learn with friends, educators, and most importantly, our youth. It is imperative that they understand Black history, become inspired, and take action to build their own greatness!

Description

Urban Intellectuals is proud to present volume 1 of our Black History Flash Cards, designed to combat the miseducation and suppression of Black achievements around the globe.

This volume's 52 cards gives a strong foundation to the many untold stories, achievements, and unknown people that have given shape, color, and definition to the worlds of academia, science, civil rights, business, the arts, and more.

Enjoy learning about the revolutionary contributions of our people. Take pleasure in sharing all that you learn with friends, educators, and most importantly, our youth. It is imperative that they understand Black history, become inspired, and take action to build their own greatness!

You may also like...

Related products

Black History Flashcards, Vol 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Five deck bundle offer) Black History Flashcards: Women, dedicated 100% to amazing Black women! (Volume 2)

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Urban Intellectuals is proud to present volume 1 of our Black History Flash Cards, designed to combat the miseducation and suppression of Black achievements around the globe. This volume's 52 cards gives a strong foundation to the many untold stories, achievements, and unknown people that have given shape, color, and definition to the worlds of academia, science, civil rights, business, the arts, and more.

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Photo 51 and HELA cells in Genetics Unit.

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Photo 51 and HELA cells in Genetics Unit.

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While this is not science specific, our homerooms teach this curriculum. I strive to make connections to this content in my science instruction. For example, 2nd grade's lessons are about kids around the world and how their clothes, houses, foods are different. I align my properties of matter unit to their timing of instruction, and we talk about the different properties of housing materials while testing dog house roofing options.

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In our Curriculum, students are presented with opportunities to examine and explore fundamental values related to identity, community, and justice. Additionally, the curriculum ensures that students develop concrete academic and leadership skills that result in a more robust vision of social responsibility and global citizenship.

Without a sincere effort to understand the historical roots and current problems caused by race and racism, we will continue to passively accept the status quo. Helping students become racially literate is one of the best solutions to these persistent problems.
Access or learn more about our Curriculum and Parent/Guardian Companion Guide below.

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In our Curriculum, students are presented with opportunities to examine and explore fundamental values related to identity, community, and justice. Additionally, the curriculum ensures that students develop concrete academic and leadership skills that result in a more robust vision of social responsibility and global citizenship.

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I use this as a mentor text throughout the properties of matter unit in 2nd grade to help understand differences in material use based on the environmental need they are addressing and their availability.

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In trying to understand the geology and geography of Oregon's Willamette Valley, I start with telling the story of Tomanowos. It is a 15-ton meteorite that was revered by the Clackamas people, who named it for the Sky People. Once my students learn that scientists know it didn't land here, their next question is, "Then how did it get here?" And we are naturally launched into uncovering the power of the Missoula Floods. Here is more information:  https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/the-universe/planets/planetary-impacts/willamette-meteorite/agreement

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The rock with arguably the most fascinating story on Earth has an ancient name: Tomanowos. It means "the visitor from heaven" in the extinct language of Oregon's Clackamas Indian tribe.

The Clackamas revered the Tomanowos - also known as the Willamette meteorite - believing it came to unite heaven, earth and water for their people.

Rare extraterrestrial rocks like Tomanowos have a kind of fatal attraction for us humans. When European Americans found the pockmarked, 15-ton rock near the Willamette River more than a century ago, Tomanowos went through a violent uprooting, a series of lawsuits and a period under armed guard. It's one of the strangest rock stories I've come across in my years as a geoscientist. But let me start the tale from its real beginning, billions of years ago.

History of a rock

Tomanowos is a 15-ton meteorite made, as most metal meteorites are, of iron with about 8% nickel mixed in. These iron and nickel atoms were formed at the core of large stars that ended their lives in supernovae explosions.

Those massive explosions spattered outer space with the products of nuclear fusion - raw elements that then ended up in a nebula, or cloud of dust and gas.

Eventually the elements were forced together by gravity, forming the earliest planet-like orbs, or protoplanets of our solar system.

Some 4.5 billion years ago, Tomanowos was part of the core of one of these protoplanets, where heavier metals like iron and nickel accumulate.

Some time after that, this protoplanet must have collided with another planetary body, sending this meteorite and an unknowable number of other chunks back out into space.

Riding the flood

Subsequent impacts over billions of years eventually pushed Tomanowos' orbit across that of the Earth. As a result of this cosmic billiards game, the Tomanowos meteorite entered Earth's atmosphere around 17,000 years ago and landed on an ice cap in Canada.

Over the following decades, flowing ice slowly transported Tomanowos southwards, towards a glacier in the Fork River of Montana in what is now the United States. This glacier had created a 2,000-foot-high ice dam across the river, impounding the enormous Lake Missoula upstream.

The ice dam crumbled when Tomanowos was nearing it, releasing one of the largest floods ever documented: the Missoula Floods, which shaped the Scablands of Washington State with the power of several thousand Niagara Falls.

Trapped in ice and rafted down river by the flood, Tomanowos crossed modern-day Idaho, Washington and Oregon along the swollen Columbia River at speeds sometimes faster than 40 miles per hour, according to simulations by modern geologists. While floating near what's now the city of Portland, the meteorite's ice case broke apart, and Tomanowos sank to the river bottom.

It is one of hundreds of other "erratic" rocks - rocks made of elements that do not match the local geology - that have been found along the Columbia River. All are souvenirs from the cataclysmic Missoula floods, but none is as rare as Tomanowos.

A rock worth suing for

As flood waters ebbed, Tomanowos was exposed to the elements. Over thousands of years, rain mixed with iron sulfide in the meteorite. This produced sulfuric acid that gradually dissolved the exposed side of the rock, creating the cratered surface it bears today.

Several thousand years after the Missoula floods, the Clackamas arrived to Oregon and discovered the meteorite. Did they know it came from the heavens, despite the lack of a crater? The name Tomanowos, or Visitor from the Sky, suggests that they may have suspected the rock's extraterrestrial origins.

Millennia of peaceful rest in the Willamette valley ended in 1902 when an Oregon man named Ellis Hughes secretly moved the iron rock to his own land and claimed it as his property.

Hauling a 15-ton rock on a wooden cart for nearly a mile without being noticed wasn't easy, even in the Wild West. Hughes and his son labored for three back-breaking months. Once the meteorite was on his land, he began charging admission to view the "Willamette Meteorite."

In fact, however, the legitimate owner of the iron rock turned out to be the Oregon Iron and Steel Company, which owned the land where Hughes had found the meteorite and sued for its return. While the suit worked its way through the courts, the company hired a guard who sat atop Tomanowos 24 hours a day with a loaded gun. They won the case in 1905, and sold Tomanowos to the American Museum of Natural History in New York a year later.

Floods

Today Tomanowos can be seen in the museum's Hall of the Universe exhibition, which still refers to it as the Willamette Meteorite. In 2000 the museum signed an agreement with descendants of the Clackamas tribe, recognizing the meteorite's spiritual significance to the Native people of Oregon.

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde hold an annual ceremonial visit with the ancient rock that, as their ancestors so aptly observed, brought the sky and the water together here on Earth. In 2019 several fragments of the meteorite that had been held separately were returned to the tribe.

But the museum's written display tells only some of the rock's long story. It omits the Missoula Floods, despite the significance of this event for modern earth science.

Decades after geologists J. Harlen Bretz and Joseph T. Pardee separately posited the theory of the Missoula floods in the early 20th century, their research was used to explain how Tomanowos reached Oregon, where it was found. Their work also triggered one of the most significant paradigm shifts in recent geoscience: the recognition that catastrophic flooding events significantly contribute to the erosion and evolution of landscape

Previously, scientists had followed Lyell's principle of uniformitarianism, which held that Earth's landscape was sculpted by regular, natural processes distributed evenly over long times. Normal floods fit into this theory, but the notion of swift, catastrophic events like the Missoula Floods were somewhat heretic.

The idea of huge Ice Age floods helped geologists a century ago prevail over pre-scientific, religious explanations for unusual finds - such as how marine fossils could be found at high elevation, and how a giant metal rock from outer space came to rest in Oregon.

<p>Este art&iacute;culo se vuelve a publicar de <a href="http://theconversation.com/es?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=related-link&utm_campaign=related-link0&utm_content=article-134213">The Conversation</a>, un medio digital sin fines de lucro dedicado a la diseminaci&oacute;n de la experticia acad&eacute;mica.<p> <p><strong>Lee mas:</strong><br><ul><li><a href="http://theconversation.com/the-tell-tale-clue-to-how-meteorites-were-made-at-the-birth-of-the-solar-system-116052?utm_source=Yahoo&amp;utm_medium=related-link&amp;utm_campaign=related-link0&amp;utm_content=article-134213">The tell-tale clue to how meteorites were made, at the birth of the solar system</a></li><li><a href="http://theconversation.com/even-setting-evolution-aside-basic-geology-disproves-creationism-40356?utm_source=Yahoo&amp;utm_medium=related-link&amp;utm_campaign=related-link1&amp;utm_content=article-134213">Even setting evolution aside, basic geology disproves creationism</a></li></ul></p>
Daniel Garcia-Castellanos receives funding from CSIC (Spanish Public Research Council) and the European Commission.

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Tomanowos, the meteorite that survived mega-floods and human folly

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The rock with arguably the most fascinating story on Earth has an ancient name: Tomanowos. It means "the visitor from heaven" in the extinct language of Oregon's Clackamas Indian tribe.The Clackamas revered the Tomanowos - also known as the Willamette meteorite - believing it came to unite heaven, earth and water for their people.Rare extraterrestrial rocks like Tomanowos have a kind of fatal attraction for us humans.

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Forces & Ancient Civilizations & Weaponry

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Forces & Ancient Civilizations & Weaponry

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While studying forces with my 5th graders, we can talk about the medieval catapult, OR the amazing Dahomey Warriors and their spear throwing capabilities. We also look at the Aztecan atlatl, and design atlatl prototypes that also require students to explore the different forces needed for transferring energy from the handle to the spear.

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Actors Chadwick Boseman and Michael B Jordan earned high praise for their roles in the 2018 Marvel film Black Panther. But for me, the real stars were the Dora Milaje, the special forces unit of the fictional Kingdom of Wakanda. Fearsome yet principled, these female bodyguards provided the film's moral compass.

I was thrilled to find out that the inspiration for these powerful women is rooted in reality, and that the descendants of these women still keep their traditions alive.

You may also be interested in:
* China's 'Kingdom of Women'
* The islands where women make the rules
* The last guardians of a python spirit

"She is our King. She is our God. We would die for her," said Rubinelle, choosing her words carefully. The 24-year-old secretary was talking about her grandmother, who was sitting on a bed in one of the front rooms of a house in Abomey, the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey and now a thriving city in southern Benin. The elderly woman's head was adorned with a crown.

I had been granted an audience with Dahomian royalty: a descendant of Queen Hangbe, who according to local legend is the founder of the Amazons, an elite group of female warriors. As her living embodiment, the elderly woman has inherited her name and her authority. Four Amazons were attending to her, sitting on a woven mat on the floor. The room was relatively grand: there was a table and chairs for visitors and, in the corner, sat an old-fashioned television next to a makeshift drinks cabinet.

After indicating that I should prostrate myself before the queen and take a ceremonial sip of water, Rubinelle and her grandmother told me the story of their ancestors.

The Dahomey Amazons were frontline soldiers in the army of the Kingdom of Dahomey, a West African empire that existed from 1625 to 1894. Its remnants lie in modern-day Benin, which occupies a sliver of the coast between Nigeria and Togo. Whether conquering neighbouring tribes or resisting European forces, the Amazons were known for their fearlessness. In one of the final battles against the French in 1892 before the kingdom became a French colony, it is said only 17 out of 434 Amazons came back alive.

According to legend, Hangbe assumed the throne in the early 18th Century after the sudden death of her twin brother, Akaba. After a short rule, she was forcibly deposed by her power-hungry younger brother, Agaja. The current Queen Hangbe told me that all traces of her ancestor's reign were erased by Agaja, who believed that only men should hold the throne. In a dusty museum that lies within the walls of the Royal Palaces in Abomey, the monarchs' elaborate bronze sceptres are displayed in order of their reign. There is no sign of one belonging to Hangbe, and some historians question whether she existed at all.

Yet her legacy lived on through her mighty female soldiers. Oral and written accounts differ over the origins of the women-only corps. Some sources describe the Amazons as elephant hunters who graduated to human prey. The more widely accepted theory is that they served as royal bodyguards to Hangbe and the kings who came after.

It was King Ghezo, who ruled over Dahomey from 1818 to 1858, who officially integrated the Amazons into the army. This in part was a practical decision, as manpower was increasingly scarce due to the European slave trade.

The recognition of the Amazons as official soldiers of Dahomey strengthened a duality that was already embedded in the society through the kingdom's religion, which has since developed into Vodun, now one of Benin's official religions and the basis of voodoo. An integral legend told of Mawu-Lisa, a male and female god who came together to create the universe. In all institutions, political, religious and military, men would have a female equivalent. The king, however, reigned supreme.

Historical accounts of the Amazons are notoriously unreliable, though several European slave traders, missionaries and colonialists recorded their encounters with the fearless women. In 1861, Italian priest Francesco Borghero described an army exercise where thousands of women scaled 120m-high thorny acacia bushes barefoot without a whimper. In 1889, French colonial administrator Jean Bayol described witnessing one young Amazon approach a captive as part of her training. "[She] walked jauntily up, swung her sword three times with both hands, then calmly cut the last flesh that attached the head to the trunk... She then squeezed the blood off her weapon and swallowed it."

Europeans who visited the kingdom in the 19th Century called Dahomey's female fighters Amazons after the ruthless warriors of Greek mythology. Today, historians refer to them as mino, which can be translated as 'our mothers' in the local Fon language. However, Leonard Wantchekon, who was born in Benin and is now professor of politics at Princeton University and founder of the African School of Economics in Cotonou, Benin, claims the contemporary term does not accurately reflect the role the warriors played in Dahomey society. "Mino means witch," he said.

Today, the role of Queen Hangbe and her Amazons is primarily ceremonial, presiding over religious rituals that take place at the temple near her home. When I asked to take photographs of Queen Hangbe, Pierrette, another Amazon, jumped up to unfurl a ceremonial parasol over her mistress in the dark room. Fabric spelling out ' Reine Hangbe ' (Queen Hangbe) had been sewn into the fabric using the appliqué technique of Dahomey tradition. A dressmaker, Pierrette designs a new umbrella for her queen every year. Loaded with symbolism, these elaborately decorated parasols once showed status in the Dahomey court.

Queen Hangbe's umbrella was relatively simple, though in the 18th and 19th Centuries, they were often adorned with the bones of vanquished enemies. Parasols also featured images of birds and animals, as well as the round-headed clubs that Amazons used in battle.

These lethal weapons also feature in carvings on the mud walls of the squat palace buildings. Each king would build a new palace next to his predecessor's, leaving the former as a mausoleum. Though Behanzin, the last king of the Dahomey Empire, burnt the palaces before the French arrived, a section still stands in Abomey, a rusty Unesco sign hanging limply at the entrance. The bas reliefs show how the Amazons used the clubs, as well as muskets and machetes, to inflict death on enemies. In one dusty cabinet, a horse's tail springs from a human skull - a trophy brought back by an Amazon for her monarch to use as a fancy fly swatter.

There has always been a fascination with the Amazons, but its nature seems to be changing. The Black Panther film is responsible, certainly, but Dr Arthur Vido at the University of Abomey-Calavi, who has introduced a new course on the history of women in West Africa, has another theory. "As the status of women is changing in Africa, people want to know more about their role in the past."

Much of the interest in the Amazons centres on their mercilessness, though Wantchekon dismisses the glorification of their battle exploits. "That's just what soldiers did," he said. Instead, Wantchekon is more interested in what the Amazons achieved as veterans.

The village where Wantchekon grew up, to the west of Abomey, used to be the site of the Amazons' training camp. For many years, his aunt looked after an elderly Amazon who had moved to the village after retiring from the army. Villagers still remember the former soldier as "strong, independent and powerful," Wantchekon said. She challenged village hierarchies and "could do that without any repercussion from the local chief because she was an Amazon". Her example, Wantchekon thinks, inspired other women, including his mother, to be ambitious and independent.

For this reason, Wantchekon believes the Amazons are still relevant today. "Where a profession that's critical for society is dominated by men, well, why don't we insert a unit of elite women to work side by side with men? To be equal to men." For Wantchekon, it is not their strength or military prowess that made the Amazons extraordinary, but rather their capacity as role models. Marvel Studios can see the appeal: a spin-off devoted to the Dora Milaje is in the works.

As I took my leave of Queen Hangbe, Rubinelle rose to shake my hand, towering over me and looking me firmly in the eye. Driving away, I saw newly erected statues of Amazons along the road. They stood tall and broad-shouldered, and looked a lot like Rubinelle.
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The legend of Benin's fearless female warriors

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Actors Chadwick Boseman and Michael B Jordan earned high praise for their roles in the 2018 Marvel film Black Panther. But for me, the real stars were the Dora Milaje, the special forces unit of the fictional Kingdom of Wakanda. Fearsome yet principled, these female bodyguards provided the film's moral compass.