- Melissa Walker, 6-8 math teacher
Augusta Ada Lovelace: Countess of Love
Augusta was born Dec. 10, 1815, in Piccadilly Middles (which is now London), England. Augusta was a very famous mathematician. Her mother was Anne Isabelle Milbank while her father, George Gordon Byron, was a very famous poet. Augusta had suffered with some health problems and eventually contracted measles. She took a long time to recover and eventually became paralyzed. Augusta invented the computer engine. I can relate to Augusta because I like math a lot and she likes math and we both are very smart with computers. Augusta died at age 36, the same age as her father was when he died. She died Nov. 27, 1852, in Marylebone, London, England. She died from measles and/or cancer but was very sick from other sicknesses as well. She had many dreams and only achieved one before her very early death.
Dimitri Mendeleev
Dimitri Mendeleev was a great scientist whose interests in the elements led to his invention of the Periodic Table of Elements. Mendeleev was born in Tobol'sk, Siberia, on Feb. 8, 1834. As he grew older, it became apparent that he was very bright. At the age of 14, he was attending the gymnasium in Tobol'sk. Dimitri was not a “classical” scholar. He knew at a very young age that he wanted to study science and saw very little need for studying topics such as Latin and history. He felt that these were dead topics and a waste of his time. He became a professor of chemistry at the Technical Institute in 1864. His textbook, “The Principles of Chemistry,” was published in 1868-70. While writing the book he began to investigate the relationships between chemical elements. Mendeleev had a great interest in the elements, which up to his time were distinguished by only one basic property that had been proposed by John Dalton in 1805, that each element has a characteristic atomic weight. Dimitri Mendeleev was known as one of the most brilliant scientists in the world, and he died Feb. 2, 1907. I relate to Dimitri Mendeleev because he thought that most of the subjects were a waste of time and that they were dead topics just like I do. BRENDEN GRAGG
Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, 300 years to the day that Galileo died, in Oxford, England. Later he was diagnosed with ALS. After a few years of being diagnosed with ALS, Hawking caught pneumonia. He had to get an emergency tracheotomy. Stephen couldn't speak, so he was given a voice machine (kind of like a synthesizer) so that he could speak and express his ideas. Hawking later decided to go to Cambridge to do research in cosmology, because no one was working in that area yet at Oxford. Hawking worked on the basic laws that govern the universe. The way Stephen Hawking was perceived by the public was a genius. I can relate to Stephen Hawking because he was considered not intelligent, because he was in a wheelchair. And some people think I'm not as smart because I'm tall and I play lots of sports. JAKE HOWARD
Mary Edwards Walker
I chose Mary Edwards Walker to do my report on because not many people know about her and I wanted to teach them. She was born on Nov. 16, 1832. She was an abolitionist who believed in women's rights, and she helped them through a very difficult time. She graduated from Falley Seminary in Fulton, N.Y., and became a teacher, but she loved her father's medical books, and she then enrolled in Syracuse Medical College (the first medical school in the U.S. and one that equally accepted men and women). She graduated and got a job in Rome, N.Y., as a doctor, but people weren't ready for a female physician, so she enrolled in the Army. She loved to help sick people who were fighting for our country. She was taken out of the Army, and was nominated for the Medal of Honor award. She was the first woman to ever receive it. She was so proud of it, she wore it every day! She and I are very similar because she wanted to be a doctor since she was a little girl, and so have I. I have wanted to become a doctor for longer than I can remember, and now I realize that I can do it because she did it. Mary Edwards Walker died Feb. 21, 1919, from natural causes. I think she helped women throughout our country fight for our freedom and rights. ALEX HUGHES
Marie Curie
Marie Curie was born In Warsaw, Poland, on Nov. 7, 1867, to Wladyslaw and Bronislawa, who were both teachers. She had three sisters and one brother. She graduated at the top of her class with great honors. Marie attended the University of Sorbonne in Paris, where she received her degrees in physics and mathematics. Marie married Pierre Curie on July 26, 1895. They had two daughters, Irene and Eve. Her husband was killed in an accident on April 19, 1906. Marie received over 125 degrees, medals and decorations from universities and organizations around the world. Marie was awarded two Nobel Prizes in physics, one in 1903 for discovering radioactive elements and another in 1911 for isolating pure radium. Marie died of leukemia in Sabckkeniz, France, on July 4, 1934, at the age of 67. The way I can relate with Marie is that she tried her best and never gave up on her dreams. She kept on trying no matter what. That's why I am trying my hardest at everything and don't give up. I might feel discouraged sometimes, but things always work out. To conclude, if you have dreams don't give up on them; they can come true, just like Marie's dreams did. MELISSA CARVEY
Benjamin Banneker
I did my mobile project on Benjamin Banneker. His mother was a white farm owner and his father was a slave on the farm. He wasn't considered a slave because his mom was white even though he had a black father. He was the first person to make a working clock out of wood. He also made an almanac of solar and lunar eclipses. The reason I picked Benjamin Banneker was that he was inventive and liked math and science. PHILLIP TAYLOR
Sir Alexander Fleming
Sir Alexander Fleming was born on a farm in Lochfield near Darvel in East Ayrshire, Scotland, on Aug. 6, 1881, and died March 11, 1955. He married an Irish woman in 1915 (Sarah Marion), but she died in 1949. When World War I started he and many of his colleagues worked in battlefield hospitals at the fronts of France. He discovered penicillin in 1929. When World War II started he saved hundreds of millions of lives. Then he remarried, this time to a Greek woman, Dr. Amalia Koutsouri-Voureka, a Greek colleague at St. Mary's. He received his degree at St. Mary's Medical School. He had received 25 honorary degrees, 26 medals, 18 prizes (including the Nobel Prize), 13 decorations and a membership in 87 scientific academies and societies. I relate to him because I want to save some people and I am sloppy. MAVRICK MEYER
Leonardo daVinci
I chose to do my report on Leonardo daVinci because I already know some stuff about him and he seemed very interesting. Many people did not know some things about him, for instance, he studied the way blood circulates throughout the body. Also, at the age of 14, Leonardo moved to Florence where he began to study and learn in the workshop of Verrocchio. He also started his own apprenticeship in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio in 1466. Furthermore, Leonardo died on May 2, 1519, in Amboise. At this time Leonardo was 67 years old. I can relate to Leonardo because we both love to paint and sketch and we have many other things in common. So my classmates learned lots of stuff that they did not know already and it is nice to learn new things. MORGAN MORRIS
Hypatia
I did my mobile project on Hypatia of Alexandria. She was the first recorded woman to make contributions in math so this was one fact that interested me about her. She lived from 375 A.D. until the year 415 A.D. so since that was so long ago not a lot is known about her. Also, because it was so long ago it is unknown whether or not Hypatia made any original contributions to math; it is only known that she helped her father write commentaries on other mathematicians' works. It is also a possibility that she invented the astrolabe which is used in astronomy. Another factor that made me choose Hypatia for my mobile project is that she did a lot of work with her father and spent a lot of time with him which is similar to me and my father's relationship. BECCA ROSEBOOM
Mary Fairfax Somerville
Mary Fairfax Somerville was born Dec. 26, 1780, in Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, Scotland. Her father was Lieutenant George Fairfax, a vice admiral in the British Navy, and her mother was Margaret Fairfax. She was the fifth child of seven. All that Mary's mother was concerned about Mary's schooling was that she wanted her to be able to read the Bible and say her prayers. The way Mary got interested in mathematics was that she found algebraic symbols in a fashion magazine that were interesting and convinced her brother's tutor to buy her books that explained them. Mary wrote many accomplishments in her lifetime. One of the books that she wrote was “The Mechanism of the Heaven.” She wrote this in 1831 and it explained and translated Pierre Laplace's celestial mechanics. Mary was one of the first women named honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society. The last book that she wrote with the help of her daughter was an autobiography called “Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville.” Mary died of old age on Nov. 29, 1872, in Naples, Italy, at the age of 92. I can relate to Mary because I like to take risks that other people might be afraid to do and end up not doing. CINDY GOLDSBY
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes was a mathematician in algebra and geometry from which we now have Cartesian geometry. Rene was born in a small town in France called Lay Haye, now named Descartes since March 31, 1593. Rene's father was a councilor in the Parliament of Brittany in Rennes, so Descartes inherited a low rank of nobility from his father. Rene went to Jesuit College from 1604 through 1614, at the age of 8, just a few months after the opening of the college. He studied classics and traditional Aristotelian philosophy. There are only two ways that I relate to Rene Descartes. He liked to travel and I like to travel also, but I don't like to travel a long distance because I'll get bored. He also excelled in math. I excel in parts of mathematics, but sometimes I can get a bad grade. Rene also did not like any other subjects, only mathematics. STEVEN DeYOUNG
Edward Jenner
Dr. Edward Jenner brought to the world a beautiful thing. The vaccine for smallpox. Smallpox was killing hundreds of people. Two out of every three infants would die from smallpox. It was said that milk maids would never get smallpox, but they could get cowpox. Cowpox is a disease that cows get on their udders. Jenner found that by injecting the cowpox you would be immune to smallpox. I relate to him because he and I like the outdoors and we both like to help people. BREA HAGEN
Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Maria Gaetana Agnesi was a female mathematician who lived in the 1700s in Milan. Maria was provided with an excellent education growing up, which led to her important contributions to mathematics. Maria founded a curve titled the “Witch of Agnesi.” She also wrote an important book called “Analytical Institutions” which combined different important theories of famous mathematicians of her day. Maria Gaetana Agnesi also wrote another book called “Propositiones Philosophicae” which was a collection of compound essays on natural science and philosophy. Although Maria became quite famous in the mid-1700s for her theories, she was always very humble about the recognition and really just wanted to stay out of the spotlight as much as she could and lead a very simple life. After much work in the field of mathematics, Maria decided to give the rest of her life to religion. She then cared for ill and homeless women. She pursued this work until her own death from old age in 1799. Also, we both enjoy mathematics, although she must have enjoyed it a bit more than I do. It's a good subject, but I don't think that I would devote my whole life to its study. SHELBY KENNY
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