Women's History Month Jeopardy

Women scientists, leaders, writers, athletes, and firsts, gathered into one Women's History Month game any teacher can copy free and run with phone buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

Copies all 30 clues into an editor of your own. Free, no account needed.

Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Women in Science

$200
This primatologist spent decades studying chimpanzees in Tanzania and became a leading expert on their social behavior.
Who is Jane Goodall?
$400
This biologist's 1962 book Silent Spring helped spark the modern environmental movement by warning about the dangers of pesticides.
Who is Rachel Carson?
$600
This astronomer discovered pulsars, a type of rapidly spinning neutron star, while she was a graduate student in 1967.
Who is Jocelyn Bell Burnell?
$800
This biochemist's X-ray images were crucial to discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, though she died before the related Nobel Prize was awarded.
Who is Rosalind Franklin?
$1,000
This mathematician wrote what is considered the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine, over a century before modern computers existed.
Who is Ada Lovelace?

Leaders and Politics

$200
This British politician became the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in 1979.
Who is Margaret Thatcher?
$400
This American politician became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007.
Who is Nancy Pelosi?
$600
This diplomat, the former wife of a United States president, chaired the committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
Who is Eleanor Roosevelt?
$800
This German politician served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, longer than any other woman had led a major Western democracy.
Who is Angela Merkel?
$1,000
This Indian politician served as Prime Minister of India and was one of the longest-serving female heads of government in modern history.
Who is Indira Gandhi?

Writers

$200
This English novelist wrote Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility in the early 1800s.
Who is Jane Austen?
$400
This author's novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.
Who is Harper Lee?
$600
This English author created the boy wizard Harry Potter, becoming one of the best-selling novelists in history.
Who is J.K. Rowling?
$800
This poet and author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was also a prominent civil rights activist.
Who is Maya Angelou?
$1,000
This 19th-century English novelist, who published under a male pen name at first, wrote Jane Eyre.
Who is Charlotte Brontë?

Athletes

$200
This gymnast won four gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics and is considered one of the greatest gymnasts of all time.
Who is Simone Biles?
$400
This tennis champion won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most of any player in the Open Era.
Who is Serena Williams?
$600
This track and field star set world records in the 100 and 200 meters at the 1988 Olympics that still stand today.
Who is Florence Griffith Joyner?
$800
This long-distance swimmer has won more Olympic gold medals than any other female swimmer in history.
Who is Katie Ledecky?
$1,000
This tennis player became the first Black player, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam singles title, taking the 1956 French Championships.
Who is Althea Gibson?

Inventors and Innovators

$200
This actress and inventor co-developed a frequency-hopping radio technology during World War II that later contributed to the development of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Who is Hedy Lamarr?
$400
This chemist invented Kevlar, a fiber five times stronger than steel by weight, now used in bulletproof vests.
Who is Stephanie Kwolek?
$600
This computer scientist and Navy rear admiral developed one of the first compilers and helped create the COBOL programming language.
Who is Grace Hopper?
$800
This inventor patented an improved home security system in 1966, using cameras and a two-way microphone.
Who is Marie Van Brittan Brown?
$1,000
This physicist's research at Bell Labs contributed to technologies later used in caller ID and call waiting.
Who is Shirley Ann Jackson?

Famous Firsts

$200
This aviator became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932.
Who is Amelia Earhart?
$400
This physician became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, graduating in 1849.
Who is Elizabeth Blackwell?
$600
This astronaut became the first American woman in space when she flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983.
Who is Sally Ride?
$800
This justice became the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court when she was appointed in 1981.
Who is Sandra Day O'Connor?
$1,000
This tennis star and activist became the first female athlete to top Forbes' list of highest-paid athletes and helped establish equal prize money at the US Open.
Who is Billie Jean King?

Final Jeopardy — Nobel Laureates

This physicist and chemist remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

Who is Marie Curie?

How to run this board

March gives you a reason to fill a class period with names that textbooks compress into sidebars. The categories here cover women in science, political leaders, writers, athletes, inventors and innovators, and famous firsts, drawing from history rather than current headlines so the board never goes stale.

A good variation: after any correct answer, offer a bonus point for one more fact about the same woman. It rewards the students who went deeper and seeds the room with stories. The board plus Final Jeopardy fills a standard period.

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