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Scientists Biographies for 5th and 6th Graders?
kimery asks: "My wife has just been named librarian for a 5th and 6th grade school. As part of the science program, students are required to read several science biographies over the course of the school year. The current biography collection consists mainly of dead (but oh so famous!) scientists. She'd like to expand the collection of science biographies, and would like to have your suggestions as to which scientists should be included. Bonus points for suggesting someone outside the 'usual suspects.' So, what scientists do you think would be interesting for a typical 5th/6th grade student?"
Putting into a kid's mind that you could make a lifetime of selectively breeding plants for size and tastiness is a good thing.
God spoke to me.
I attend a large private university in America and I only learned about Kurt Godel through a biography project last year. I have written many bios in my time and Godel is an incredible person. Even Einstein was good friends with him. Godel contributed so many great ideas to the world and is so poorly recognized.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Here's some biographies of the less conventional scientists:
Ada Byron Lovelace: The Lady and the Computer
Nikola Tesla: A Spark of Genius
Turing and the Computer: The Big Idea
Richard Feynman
Charles Darwin
Ed Ricketts
Feynman because he is the exemplar of a truly clever person.
Charles Darwin because he had such an astonishingly insightful way of slowly accumulating information until he could see the "big picture".
Ed Ricketts because he had such an intensely committed life in biology that he is a wonderful example of how doing science can be an intensely fun life -- quite the opposite of the cold passionlessness one usually sees portrayed in science biographies
Évariste Galois is the immediate, obvious choice.
Of course Albert Einstein would probably be in the library, but it's worth making sure there's a good biography that explains his struggles as a child, his annus mirabilis, how his Nobel was for the photoelectric effect, what E=mc^2 and relativity really are, how he was invited to be PM of Israel, etc.
I suppose it's entirely appropriate for 5th and 6th graders to know there was indeed a real Nicholas Flamel.
Another fascinating biography is that of Thomas Midgley, the poor soul who came up with three ideas that seemed brilliant at the time: leaded fuels, CFCs, and a system of ropes and pulleys in his bed that strangled him.
And what middle-schooler would not appreciate the toilet humor in the life of Tycho Brahe, so concerned for court etiquette that he let his bladder clog and kill him?
Alan Turing. Lesson: if you're gay, your government will use you to win the biggest war in history, then hound you to suicide.
John Nash: Lesson: really, really, really crazy people win Nobel prizes.
Evariste Galois. Lesson: live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Oliver Sacks isn't dead, but he is a scentist. Not the kind of scientist you automatically think of when you hear the word, but he's a clinical neurologist. And this book is entertaining, while sneaking in a lot of facts about science and history that kids will think are cool.
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So, even if it's not strictly a biography, you should consider buying it, anyway. Here, read the review on
I haven't seen these folks mentioned:
Tycho Brahe (Silver noses and burst bladders)
Charles Steinmetz (dwarfism, socialism, and alternating current! Oh, my!)
Benjamin Franklin (A little inventing, a little politics, and a lot of great one-liners)
Archimedes (just plain awesome)
It's an oldie, but a goodie. He proved to me that applies pure science can be an amazing thing. Got me interested in plant genetics, actually. His work created industries and jobs that didn't exist before he did his work.
Richard P. Feynman. Read Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman and you'll understand. :))
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
When I was a kid I remember reading this. Last updated in the 1980's [although Asimov's daughter is working on an update], so no new names from the last 25 years. Biographies for over a thousand scientists from ancient egypt to 1982 [with hyperlinks].
IIRC, the reading level was more geared toward grades 8-10, so it might be a stretch for grades 4-6. [But then again, my high school science teacher had us reading Scientific American articles as an intentional stretch - in the 1970's when Scientific American was still hard science.]
Richard Feynmann, not only for being one of the most awesome scientists ever, but for his passion and sense of fun, he makes physics look a lot less like a subject for "eggheads". John von Neumann, because he was a godlike intellect and far more important to the 20th century than your man in the street realises. Freeman Dyson, because his imagination would appeal to youngsters - stuff like genetically engineering diamond-toothed turtles to eat all the garbage off the US Highway system. Really, you could blindfold youself and throw a dart into a room full of the most important scientists of the 20th & 21st centuries, and chances are you'd hit someone that no-one without a science background's ever heard of. I do not condone the throwing of darts and important scientists.
I second the vote for Nikola Tesla. Godel, Hopper and others are great, but someone like Tesla -- a brilliant scientist with a notable weirdness/insanity to him -- would be much more fascinating to kids. At least when I was younger science was much more interesting if it could be classified as "mad science."