Thursday, September 6, 2007

Marie Curie

Today E8 began his study of Marie Curie for his Beyond FIAR unit study. The book he is focusing on is, Marie Curie and the Discovery of Radium. It isn't entirely an uplifting look given that she had some pretty hard times, but he is going to love all the science this book introduces.

Today he learned she was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1867. His first activity was to label a map of Poland and before we did so I had him take a look at the atlas and wall map to tell me where it was. He immediately confirmed it was in Europe east of Germany. Sure enough...there it was! I was completely impressed when he drew in the largest river on the map himself and labeled it correctly.

Then he got a chance to begin his timeline notebook. Knowing E8, he will enjoy this a lot. When I asked him what he thought was going on at the time, he immediately told me that Laura Ingalls Wilder was born that year and the Civil War had not been over long. Then he chose to use Wikipedia to find out what else was happening. Here is a short list for inquiring minds!

1867:

*Marie Curie the physicist and chemist was born.
*Laura Ingalls Wilder was born.
*Michael Faraday died (ok he is another physicist with a constant bearing his name. That is mostly interesting to me and possibly Dan.)
*Alaska was purchased by the US.
*The Suez Canal was opened and with a small amount of prompting he correctly identified which two bodies of water it joined (Mediterranean and Red Seas).
*West Virginia University was founded (he's football minded you see)
*The Roebling suspension bridge opened between Cincinnati, OH and Covington, KY and was the longest suspension bridge in the world.

On deck for tomorrow is to discover some things about tuberculosis and malachite...stay tuned!

1 comment:

Shannon said...

Heather, I don't know if this is allowed but I wanted to tag you back with the Nice Matters Award. Thanks for the honor!
Reading about your son's adventures with Marie Curie peaks my curiosity about Beyond. I haven't thought too much about it since my kids are so little, but I have a feeling we'll be using it in a few years.