F a m o us
S ci ent i s t s
by
Ms. Amatucci’s
4th Graders
Stony Point Elementary School
December 2005
We
dedicate
this book
to
all children
who will be
the
"discoverers"
of the future
and
who will some day
fulfill their dreams
in the
world of science.
The Process
The Virginia 4th Grade Standards of Learning set an expectation that
while studying different topics in science (Life Science, Physical Science,
and Earth Science) students will become familiar with historical
contributions made by individuals. This book came about as a consequence of
our desire to meet the standards as well as to produce a book of artistic and
literary merit.
Initially, we immersed ourselves in the information contained in piles
of books from our classroom and library. We created a brainstorming chart
and a list of fascinating scientists. Later, each student thought about the
field of science that most interested them and settled on one scientist.
Each student studied their person and thought about questions like:
o
o
o
What did the scientist do to make him/her well known in the scientific world?
Briefly describe the discovery, invention, or research.
What prompted him/her to do his/her work?
The first step in the art process was to sketch our image. We
sketched the scientist in portrait style. We made adjustments and started
on another sketch. Using our pencil sketches, we used colored pencils to
recreate the portraits. We used normal pencils very lightly to get the
general idea of what it would look like. Then we colored it in with colored
pencils. We layered (using different shades of similar colors to make it
stand out) and burnished our picture to give it a waxy, glazed look.
For the writing process, we talked about what would be interesting to
read. With this information in hand, we did more research on our scientists
and collected interesting words and phrases. We answered questions in a
template –
Scientist Research
By
First Last Name
Who:
Where:
When:
What:
How:
Why:
We took the prases and made them into sentences with whole
sentences. We wrote our paragraphs and did the word processing on the
computer.
The final step was to mount our portraits and paragraphs in an
aesthetic manner and prepare them for our group display.
Carl Sagan
By Abby Weaver
Carl Sagan was born in New York on November 9, 1934.
He died on December 20, 1996.
He wrote books, had a TV show called “Cosmos”, and he
also had a movie that was seen by about 500 million people.
He was a consultant and advisor to NASA since the 1950s.
He was one of the first to think that there was life on other
planets, especially Mars. He helped design the Mariner 2
mission to Venus and the Mariner 9 and Viking trips to Mars. He
also worked on the Voyager mission to the outer solar system
and the Galileo mission to Jupiter. He helped solve the
mysteries of the high temperatures in Venus.
As a boy he loved to read science fiction books and was
very interested in Astronomy. His parents taught him to search
for his answers to his many questions. As an adult he continued
to search for his answers to his questions about science.
Robert Oppenheimer
By
Alex Houchens
He did his research at Los Alamos in New Mexico. He did
his research around June 1942. He is no
longer living. Robert Oppenheimer invented the first
atomic/nuclear bomb. Oppenheimer began to look for a way to
separate Uranium 235 from natural uranium and to find out the
mass that was to make an atomic bomb. The atomic bomb was
used during World War II. It ended the war with Japan.
T ycho Brahe
by Alex McNair
Tycho Brahe was born in Denmark and lived from 1546 to 1601. He
created more accurate astronomy instruments and more accurate ways to
observe the planets and the moon. His observations showed that the planets
and other objects (comets, stars) were behind the moon and that planets and
the moon moved in orbits.
Brahe observed the moon and the planets and their orbits very
carefully with the best instruments. He was very careful with his
observations. He kept very accurate records of the movements of the planets
and the moon.
Brahe went to many colleges and got interested in astronomy. He
even bought some astronomy instruments. He wanted to teach people more
about astronomy and he believed he could do it by using accurate
observations. King Frederick II gave him money to start an observatory.
In a dual with a student while he was at college, in Wittenberg in
1566, Brahe lost part of his nose. For the rest of his life, he wore a metal
insert over the missing part.
^tàx ZÄxtáÉÇ
By
Allison Keenan
Kate Gleason was born November 25, 1865 in New York.
She also did her work in New York. She studied mechanical arts
at Cornell University in 1884.
Kate helped her father invent and improve a machine that
made gears. Henry Ford said it was "the most remarkable machine
work ever done by a woman." She also was the first woman
president of the First National Bank in Rochester, New York.
Kate began working in her father's tool company when she
was just 12 years old. She went around the world selling the tools.
She was very smart and got along well with people.
Thomas Alva Edison
By Chandler Hamilton
Thomas Edison, known as the Wizard of Menlo Park, was born
in 1847 and started inventing in 1868. He died in 1931. He was known as
the Wizard of Menlo Park because he was born in Menlo Park, New
Jersey.
Edison invented the light bulb, phonograph, and the mimeograph.
That is what made Edison famous. Edison made lots of stuff. I will tell
you about the light bulb. He tried lots of substances and failed until he
tried carbonated cotton. Edison was very
curious so he made much much more!
Alexander Graham Bell
by Alyssa Carroll
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1870s
on March 3rd. He died in Canada.
He invented the telephone, photo phone, and the telegraph. He did it
by connecting two wires, one for the sound and one for receiving.
He liked to invent things. He was very interested in communication
and wanted to help deaf people.
Jane Goodall
By Brandon Wiseman
I did my research about Jane Goodall. Jane was born in 1934
in England. She currently lives in Nobory, Kenya. In 1985, she
observed chimps. She watched them nurse their babies, eat, and
catch food. She was awarded the J. Paul Getty Wildlife
Conservation prize. She wanted to help us all better understand the
relationship between all creatures.
William Ryan and Walter Pitman
by
Brittany Murphy
William Ryan does research at Columbia University. Walter
Pitman does research at Colombia University.
During the
1990’s they did research and in 1997, they published a book about
Noah’s flood. They discovered Noah’s flood was real by studying
the earth’s surface and other clues.
They looked at everything
from the past like pottery and they discovered that there had to
be a flood. They studied sediments in the rock from the bottom
of the Black Sea. They discovered as the climate got warmer, the
seas started to rise. The water rose quickly and homes were
washed away. Scared people told their story to others.
They were curious about the flood. They wanted to
know if it was it real and when did it happen.
Francis William Aston
By
Cage Lambert
Francis William Aston researched in Birmingham, England.
He was born on September 1, 1877 and died on November 20,
1945.
Francis researched chemistry and then turned to physics. He
won the Forster scholarship in 1898. That allowed him to work on
the optical properties of tartaric acid derivatives. Francis
developed mass spectrograph, a device that separates atoms or
molecular fragments. He went to collage and was trained as a
chemist. He was a chemist when he evolved into a psychologist.
Thomas Jefferson
By
Chloe Herring
Thomas Jefferson lived in Shadwell and Charlottesville, Va
and Paris, France between 1743-1826. He was an inventor,
astronomer, a man of science, a paleontologist, and an expert on
anatomy. He was an architect. He designed “Monticello”. He
liked farming and was an observer of nature. He invented the
polygraph, a machine that copied each letter as he was writing. He
always wanted to learn about science and study a lot of things.
Benjamin Franklin
by
Cody Herring
Ben Franklin was born on Milk Street in Boston Massachusetts on January 17,
1706. He died April 17, 1789.
Franklin wanted to answer the question “Are lightning and electricity the same
thing?” He made a strange looking kite – it had a rod at the top and a key on a silk cord at
the end. On a stormy day, he and his son, Billy went outside with the kite. When
lightning hit the rod, Mr. Franklin was holding the key. He got a “tingle” in his hand and
figured out that lightning and electricity were the same thing. Mr. Franklin wanted to be
able to control electricity. By taking a metal rod and putting it on top of a house he could
help prevent homes from catching on fire caused by lightning. He had invented the
“lightning rod”. People weren’t so afraid of lightning.
Jacques Cousteau
By: Cole Dickerson
Jacques Cousteau was born in St. Andre- Cubzac, France on June 11th, 1910. He
died on June 25th, 1997 in Paris, France. Jacques Cousteau did most of his work in the
1940s.
Jacques Cousteau wanted to invent a device that would allow people to stay under
water longer. He succeeded in the year of 1943. The device was called The Aqualung.
Jacques Cousteau worked with Emile Gagnan on a portable breathing device. A
portable breathing device would help them stay under water for several hours. It also
allows divers to swim through the water more easily than the old diving suit.
When Jacques Cousteau was young, he was injured in a car accident breaking
both arms and other bones. When Cousteau was 20 years old, he graduated from the
French naval academy at Brest and became an officer in his country’s navy. While
Cousteau was recovering from his accident, he swam more. His friend, Philippe Talliez,
told him to swim so he could get better faster.
Robert Oppenheimer
By Dalton McWilliams
Robert Oppenheimer was born in New York City, NY on April 22nd,
1904. He died of throat cancer on February 18th, 1967. Robert
Oppenheimer studied at Harvard and then started working with Ernest
Rutherford at Cambridge University.
Mr. Oppenheimer began to seek a process for the separation of
uranium 235 from natural uranium to make an atom bomb. Robert
Oppenheimer went to school and studied math and science after retuning to
the USA in 1929 at university of California he worked with many great men
and soon helped develop the 1st nuclear weapon.
He then became the director of the Manhattan project where he
worked with others in developing the atom bombs. Oppenheimer worked on
this goal and it was clear that this was going to be a major change in the
human world. He thought it might make a difference between victory and
defeat.
Charles Robert Darwin
by
De'Andre Bright
Charles Robert Darwin was born February 12, 1809 to 1882.
He became famous for his theories of evolution.
He did his research at Chris Cambridge College. He collected
plants, insects, and geological samples to study. He wrote The
Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection. He had a natural
interest in how life began and how the strongest animal or
healthiest plant lived.
Galileo Galilei
By: Elise Mollica
Galileo was born in the year 1564 in Pisa, Italy. He invented the
30- power telescope in the year 1609 while he was a professor at the
University of Padua, in Italy. He did this by improving the Dutch 3power spyglass. Later that year he became the first person to point a
telescope at the sky, and discovered craters on the Moon, rings
around Saturn, moons orbiting Jupiter, and the phases of Venus!
Later in his life he used his invention to make many heavenly
discoveries. He also wrote many books about them, like “Discourse on
Floating Bodies”, and “Letters on Sunspots”. Galileo died in the year
1642 in Arcetri, Italy.
John Wesley Powell
By: Hailey Gelzer
John Wesley Powell was born in Mount Morris, New York, September
23, 1834. Powell died September 23, 1902 six pm at night.
On May 24, 1869, Powell started the river trip. They started their
trip down the Green River in Green, Wyoming. John was the first person to
navigate the Grand Canyon. It took 3 months to complete the trip. During
the trip they ran 414 rapids and made 62 portages.
They used four boats that were twenty-one feet long and four feet wide and
could hold about four thousand pounds of cargo includes rice, flour, beans,
coffee, sugar, bacon and dried apples.
For Powell, the trip was based on intellectual adventure. Another
reason was to make collections in geology, natural history, annuities and
ethnology.
Orville Wright
by
Jacob Morris
Orville Wright was born on August 19, 1871 and he died on
January 30, 1948. Orville and his brother, Wilbur, made the first
“controllable” airplane. The plane was completed on December 17,
1903. He first flew the plane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. When
Orville and Wilbur were kids they loved mechanics. When they
read about the death of pioneer glider pilot Otto Lilienthal in 1896,
they became fascinated in flying. They started to study on the
subject. By fall 1903 they made the first airplane.
Mary Anning
By
Kristine Evans
Mary Anning was a fossil scientist. She found fossils by the
cliffs around her house.
Mary Anning was born May 21, 1799 and she lived in
England in 1799. She died of breast cancer on March 9, 1877.
She studied fossils and bones and sold them. She dug the
fossils out of the rocky cliffs. She found fossils because she liked
to dig for strange stones and shapes buried in the cliffs around her
house. She also liked to sell the fossils for money.
STEVE PAUL JOBS
By
Larry Castle
Steve Paul Jobs was born in Los Altos, CA in 1955. He is still living.
He did his research in Los Altos, CA. He co-founded Apple computer. He
also started his work in his family garage. The company was named after his
favorite fruit the “apple”!
Steve Job worked for Atari. He was a friend of Steve Wozniak and
they designed games together. They made their “first killing” when the Byte
Shop in Mountain View bought their first fifty fully assembled computers.
The reason that he did all of this was because he loved computers and
making games for them.
Herman von Helmholts
By
Luke Opitz
Herman Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholts
was born in 1821 in Potsdam, Germany, and he died in 1894.
He developed the first law of thermodynamics, also called
the law of conservation of energy by studying metabolism in
muscle. He also invented the ophthalmoscope.
Marie Curie
By
Maydha Kapur
Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland in Europe. For her studies
she moved to France.
She was born in 1867and died in 1934.She was awarded in 1903 and
1911.
Marie Curie was a physicist chemist. She discovered two elements,
Polonium and Radium. She was the first woman to get a Nobel Prize and the
first person to get two.
She discovered a process to get Radium out of ore. She also found out
that Polonium is highly radioactive in its pure form. It was so radioactive it
glowed.
Mr.Becqurel discovered that Uranium emitted some rays that pass
through flesh and wood. Other scientist ignored his discovery. Marie deiced
to find out about the rays leading to her discovery of Radium.
Edwin Powell Hubble
By Michael Bryant
Edwin Powell Hubble was a scientist who studied
the sky. He was born in Marshfield, Missouri. He
lived from 1889 to 1953. Hubble helped design a
200-inch Hale telescope. He was the first to use it
.He studied the planets and the skies of space, and he
used telescopes to see them. He wanted to see space
and stars.
Marlin Perkins
By: Monica Rishel
Marlin Perkins did his research all over the world.
He was born in 1905 and he died in 1986. He lived for 81
years. Marlin Perkins was a zoologist. He had his own
TV show, Wild Kingdom. He had a zoo career then he
recognized his talent and became a zoologist and TV
personality. He was always around animals.
Galileo Galilei
by
Morgen Leake
Galileo Galilei was an astronomer, philosopher, and
mathematician. Galileo lived in Florence, Italy. He did his
research at the University of Pisa.
Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy, February 15, 1564. His
family moved to Florence, Italy. He died in 1642.
Galileo invented the telescope and he invented the
pendulum. He invented the pendulum from his interest in
motion and he also got his idea from a swinging lamp. He
wanted to model the European telescope so that it would
magnify objects 20 times greater. He invented the telescope
so he could magnify objects in space.
Aristotle
By
Parker Miller
I did my research on Aristotle who lived in Ancient Greece
from 384-322 B.C. Aristotle did physics, math, astronomy, and
philosophy. He did many tests. He studied the world around him
and worked on many things. He did research because he wanted to
understand the world around him.
Sir Isaac Newton
(1643-1727)
Sir Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe in Linconshire,
England, but he did most of his work in Cambridge.
He wrote the three laws of physics which are displayed
below.
1. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to
remain in that state of motion unless an external force is
applied to it.
2. The relationship between an objects mass m, its
acceleration a, and the applied force F is F=ma.
Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their
symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law
the direction of the force vector is the same as the
direction of the acceleration vector.
3.
for every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction.
By Buddy Andersen
Sylvia A. Earle
By Sophie Bromberger
Sylvia Earle was born in Gibbstown, New Jersey; now she lives in
Oakland, California. She was born August 30th 1935 and is still alive. Sylvia
Earle is a deep-sea diver. She also wrote 3 books. She helped get more
funding from the government. By diving into the sea and researching the
undersea world, she discovered some new animals. She also set some
records. She was pulled into the ocean when she was a kid, and ever since
she has loved the sea.
Thomas Alva Edison
By Tom Sam
Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847 and died in
1941. He made the incandescent light bulb. Mr. Edison
used wires which made the electricity run through them. He
did it to help people to see in the dark. Thomas Edison gave
light to the people.