Liza N. Burby

Genre: Non-fiction science informative
Review: I enjoyed this book. It did a good job with bolding important vocabulary. The book also broke into sections that had good questions/ subjects. The book had very big font and connected some of the facts to real life applications which I thought was a good example. The book talks about heat strokes and droughts it goes over multiple questions about both of them and how they affect the environment. This book also has good pictures. I learned great facts and history from this book I would love to share it with my students.
Summary: This book mainly talked about the major questions about heat waves and droughts. some of the questions where how is a drought harmful or What is a heat wave? what is a drought? The other thing that the book went into was the talk about past heat waves and droughts.… (altro)

Marie Currie was a Nobel Prize-Winning physicist. Liza N. Burby wrote a short biography about her life. This book goes through Marie’s life and talks about several important contributions Marie made in science. The book also includes several pictures of Marie through her life.
The book starts by talking about Marya Sklodowska (Marie Currie’s name at birth) love for learning and her hard times in Poland. Her parents were both teachers and she gained her love from them. Poland was controlled by Russia and in school kids were only to be taught to speak Russian. At night Marya’s father would read Polish stories to her. She could speak both Russian and Polish.
Maria took a strong liking to physics and chemistry. She would admire her father’s physics equipment. This is when she decided she wanted to work in the area of physics. She went to Paris, France to study at a university. This is also when she changed her name to Marie. She was the first woman to get a degree in physics. She also received a degree in math.
She married a fellow scientist, and after their daughter was born, Marie became a physics teacher. To be a teacher she had to write a paper and decided to write it on elements that made rays other then uranium. During this she discovered other elements in uranium. She decided to try and figure out what these other elements were with the help of her husband. They discovered the two elements polonium and radium. She discovered a new energy called radioactivity in radium. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for her work.
Marie’s husband died shortly after their second daughter was born. Marie was saddened but continued her work. She later received a second Nobel Prize in chemistry. She ended up getting very sick from her work with radium and died. She opened the door for women in science.
I found the book to be an easy read and very fascinating. It has a lot of information about Marie Curie but not too much to overwhelm a middle school student. This book would be a great starting point to learn more about Marie Curie. This book could be used in both a science class and a history class. It could also be used to learn about important women in history. The book definitely stresses Marie Curie’s important role as a female during history. The biography is short to the point and accurate.… (altro)