// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Only one female scientist named in GCSEs, research finds
Franklin was a British chemist and crystallographer, whose X-ray diffraction work helped discover the structure of DNA
Rosalind Franklin is the only female scientist named in GCSE and National 5 science exam specifications in the UK, according to new research.
A Cambridge study found that of the 86 scientists named by UK exam boards, the English chemist, whose work in the 1950s helped reveal the structure of DNA, was the only woman.
Exam specifications set out the skills and knowledge students are expected to have gained by the end of their course and how they will be assessed.
Exam boards said there was "a clear need for greater representation in science qualifications".
Academics from the University of Cambridge, along with institutions in the US and Australia, examined how many women were mentioned in specifications for biology, chemistry, physics, environmental science, geology and astronomy.
Their work, published in the British Educational Research Journal, looked at six exam boards in the UK:
At Key Stage 4 and equivalent, including GCSEs and National 5s in Scotland, Franklin was the only woman among the 86 scientists mentioned.
She was also one of three women mentioned at Key Stage 5 and equivalent - including A-levels, AS-levels, National Highers and National Advanced Highers - out of a total of 181 scientists.
Marie Tharp, an American cartographer who created the first map of the floor of the Atlantic ocean in the 1950s, and Inge Lehmann, a Danish seismologist who discovered the existence of the Earth's inner core in the 1930s, both feature in the Cambridge OCR's A-level Geology.