Inspiring STEM Minds Inspiring STEM Minds Biographies and Activities for Elementary Classrooms Aaron D. Isabelle and Nataly Z. Valle State University of New York at New Paltz, USA A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-94-6300-350-6 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-351-3 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-352-0 (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/ Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of the figures which have been reproduced from other sources. Anyone with a copyright claim who has not been properly credited is requested to contact the publishers, so that due acknowledgements may be made in subsequent editions. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2016 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. TAblE of CoNTENTS Preface vii Acknowledgements ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 STEM Policy 1 The History of STEM in Elementary Classrooms 2 Purpose of the Book 4 Organization of the Book 6 Chapter 2: Science 9 S.1. Jane Goodall 9 S.2. Neil Degrasse Tyson 13 S.3. Galileo Galilei 17 S.4. Mary Anning 21 S.5. Daniel Bernoulli 25 S.6. Sir Isaac Newton 29 S.7. Alfred Nobel 34 S.8. Alfred Wegener 38 Chapter 3: Mathematics 43 M.1. William Playfair 43 M.2. Roger Penrose 47 M.3. Emmy Noether 52 M.4. Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (a.k.a. Fibonacci) 57 M.5. John von Neumann 66 M.6. Georg Cantor 72 M.7. Marin Mersenne 78 M.8. Sofia Kovalevskaya 82 Chapter 4: Technology 87 T.1. Ada Lovelace 87 T.2. Steve Jobs 92 T.3. Alan Turing 95 T.4. Marissa Mayer 100 v Table of ConTenTs Chapter 5: Engineering 103 E.1. James Dyson 103 E.2. Nikola Tesla 108 E.3. Alexander Graham Bell 113 E.4. Joseph Lister 118 Chapter 6: Concluding Remarks 123 About the Authors 125 vi PrEfACE Let us start by telling a story – a personal story about mathematics. Once upon a time there was a little girl who didn’t believe she was good at mathematics. In fact, although she was a good student, her lack of confidence and quiet demeanor often made her feel invisible in the classroom. One day in pre- algebra class, she was introduced to inequalities and systems of equations. She learned several ways to manipulate them in order to, as her teacher put it, “solve for x.” Although it would take decades for her to understand what the unknown actually was referring to in an equation, she was entranced with the mathematical process itself, seeing it as a game that had many strategies and only a few key rules. Unfortunately, the game became more difficult for her as the rules and the process became more rigid as the lessons progressed. Then, one day the teacher told her a story about Albert Einstein. When he was working on a problem, Einstein would often take long walks outside and he especially liked to play his violin during the times when the solution proved most difficult. In fact, it was during one of these intense music/ walking sessions that Einstein discovered the General Theory of Relativity. Coincidentally, the girl also played the violin, and who doesn’t like taking a walk to clear one’s head? Mathematics became a game again, and the girl soon found out that not only did she enjoy this game, but that she was getting pretty good at it, too. While it is clear who the little girl is, it may not be clear to the reader yet why this story is important for this book. Stories compel us in many ways, evoking powerful emotions, stirring us to action, and causing us to make connections in our lives we may not otherwise do. Stories are important educational tools, as well, but often are not pedagogically theorized or explicitly drawn out in lesson plans as they ought to be. This book began as an assignment given to our students for the purpose of getting them to understand how to immerse elementary age children into the wondrous and exciting world of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Although we did not have our students write a story (i.e., narrative) about a person in the STEM disciplines, we did have them craft biographies of various individuals who they were interested in and who they thought elementary children would also find intriguing. In other words, we had our students focus on key excerpts in the “stories of the lives” of individuals who either previously or currently work in one of the STEM fields. Our ultimate goal was to help our students realize the human side of STEM. vii ACkNowlEDgEMENTS We would like to extend a sincere thank you to the following individuals who contributed to this book: Brianna Aldrich Melissa Allen Marianne Badalamenti Jamie Crofoot Stephanie Flynn Leticia Fronek Noelle Grande Shayna Greenspan Melissa Hoffstatter Helen Huang MaKayla Jahn Caitlyn Lee Jennifer Lutz Sarah Manganella Bermary Maria Amanda Mastrantone Lauren McLachlan Caribel Mejia Brooke Mistretta Elizabeth Morgan Alanna O’Connor Shena Rodriguez Rebecca Rothman Alexandria Rumfola Patricia Staats-Velez Pam Sunderland Corrine Vertescher Anna Weinstein ix