{"id":662,"date":"2014-03-18T00:01:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T05:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/?p=662"},"modified":"2014-03-18T00:01:38","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T05:01:38","slug":"girl-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/?p=662","title":{"rendered":"Girl Scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"

“so she took her microscope
\nand two ounces of hope
\nand found the theory of radioactivity”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Bones\"<\/a>That’s a line from “(I Wanna Be Like) Madam Curie<\/a>,” by Renee and Jeremy, a song appearing on Spare the Rock Records’ Science Fair<\/em><\/a>. Thanks in part to that song, which we’ve listened to dozens of times, and this t-shirt<\/a>, which I gave Hannah a couple of years ago, my oldest is fascinated by the life and accomplishments of Marie Curie.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, Hannah came home from school with information about participating in the fourth grade “living wax museum.” Each student was to select a famous person from history, prepare a short biographical talk, and come to school dressed as their famous person. I was able to attend the event on Thursday, and I saw the fourth grade hall filled with kids in various costumes (Daniel Boone, Eleanor Roosevelt, Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss, a few Albert Einsteins), all standing stock-still until tapped on their shoulders. Then they came to life and shared their mostly memorized biographies.<\/p>\n

Hannah was determined to go with Marie Curie for her contribution to the living wax museum, but there was a hitch. The students were instructed to select a famous person from the Who Was…? <\/em><\/a>series of biographies. We headed down to Barnes & Noble on a Sunday afternoon to pick up our book, only to find out that the Marie Curie volume in the series wasn’t coming out until this fall. Dejected, Hannah considered her other options. “Well,” she said, in an Eeyore voice, “I guess I can go with Laura Ingalls Wilder.” I suggested Jane Goodall, another woman scientist, but Hannah said someone else had already picked her.<\/p>\n

On the bookcase next to the Who Was…?<\/em> books I saw the National Geographic series of kid-friendly biographies. There was the Marie Curie volume, full of information and pictures from her life. I suggested that Hannah just use the National Geographic book, but she worried that her teacher wouldn’t accept the substitution. I told her not to worry about it, that if she told her teacher she really wanted to pick Marie Curie, then her teacher would allow it. Hannah seemed skeptical, but after I promised to write her teacher a note, she went for it.<\/p>\n

Of course, Hannah’s teacher had no problem with Hannah using a different series of biographies, and so she spent the next two weeks learning about Marie Curie — as did the rest of us. Marie, as we found out, discovered the atomic property of radioactivity and the elements polonium and radium. Much of her work was done with her scientist husband, Pierre, and she shared her first Nobel Prize (in physics) with him. Yes, that would be her first<\/em> Nobel Prize. She won another one later (in chemistry), making her one of only four people to win two Nobel Prizes — and the only one to win in two different sciences. Marie Curie was also the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, as well as the first woman to be a professor at the University of Paris.<\/p>\n

Hannah also learned about Marie Curie’s personal life, including her early years in Poland, her move to Paris, her marriage to Pierre and the children they had, Pierre’s sudden death in a traffic accident, and Marie’s later relationship with a married man. Hannah focused more on Marie’s scientific accomplishments in her costume for the living wax museum, donning a lab coat, holding a couple of test tubes, and accompanied by an x-ray machine — or rather, a lightbox (used for tracing) topped by a printout of an x-ray Hannah found online.<\/p>\n

A little earlier this evening, before I sat down to write this blog post, I asked Hannah to tell me a few things about Marie Curie. That 90-second biography that she prepared for last Thursday’s living wax museum? She still had it memorized. I’m proud of the work she put in on this project, and I’m glad I got the chance to show her that you sometimes have to stand up for yourself in order to follow your passion. (Really, the teacher didn’t mind at all, but Hannah thought she would.) I hope that’s a lesson she’ll carry with her, just as she carries with her the inspiration provided by Marie Curie’s life. Along with Curie’s biography, Hannah memorized this quote from Marie Curie: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.<\/b>” Those are good words for my little girl scientist.<\/p>\n

Want more Marie Curie? Tonight, while searching for a video of that Renee and Jeremy song, I stumbled on an interview with artist and writer Lauren Redniss<\/a>, author of the Marie Curie biography Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout<\/em><\/a>. Redniss calls it a “visual book,” and it’s beautiful. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before given my interest in comics and visual thinking — it was the first illustrated book nominated for a National Book Award in Non-Fiction.\u00a0 If this sounds at all interesting to you, take twelve minutes and watch this TEDx talk by Lauren Redniss. The connection she draws between art and science through the lens of unexpected results is profound. I can’t wait to share this video with Hannah tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n