This Issue:

Table of Contents

Cover Story

Cover Story - Spanish Version

Mini-Lesson

Comprehension Quiz

Teacher's Guide and Worksheets

Celebrating Women's History Month

A century ago, women in America were fighting for their rights--to vote, to own property, to get a good education. They hoped to have the same choices as men, not to live as second-class citizens.

Now more than half of all college students in the U.S. are women. Women are expanding their horizons in the sciences, math and other technical fields that were once considered too complex for girls to study.

Here you will meet three women at the top of their fields in math and science. Wouldn't those pioneering women who fought for equal rights be proud?

The Queen of the Deep
Marine biologist Sylvia Earle has spent more than 6,000 hours under the sea. She began diving at age 17 and has walked on the ocean floor 1,250 feet below the surface--a world record. Earle was the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini-stration. She now works on many sea-exploration projects.

Earle's love of the sea and its magical creatures has launched her on a crusade to protect our vast, largely unexplored oceans. "If you had to choose a time to be alive, this would be it," she says. "The greatest era of exploration has just begun."

She Goes to Extremes
As a child, Nathalie Cabrol was always asking questions about the universe. So she became a planetary geologist, a scientist who studies a planet's rocks and geographic features to learn about its history. "Exploring helps us to ask better questions," she told TFK.

Cabrol is studying Mars and its ancient lakes for the NASA Ames Research Center, in California. She travels to extreme spots, including the world's highest lakes, to study the limits of life on Earth and the possibility of life on Mars. "We have so many new frontiers to discover," she says.

Even Tiny Bits Matter
Shirley Ann Jackson has a unique job: She studies objects that no one can see. No, she is not a magician. Jackson is a theoretical physicist. She uses mathematical equations to study the tiniest bits of matter. Physicists work to understand how invisible particles behave under various condi-tions. Jackson is now the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a technology university in Troy, New York. "I enjoy helping others real-ize their dreams of becoming scientists and engineers of the future," she told TFK.

Next: Freedom Fighter