Marie Curie was a pioneering female scientist who was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. She was born in Poland but conducted her research in France with her husband Pierre. Through their research on uranium, they discovered radioactivity and the elements polonium and radium. While her work helped advance medical x-rays, prolonged exposure to radiation negatively impacted her health and led to her death from leukemia. She helped establish women in science and showed girls could also succeed in scientific research.

1. Science Corner!
Day 2

2. Scientist of the Day
Marie Curie

3. Marie Curie was a chemist
and physicist famous for
becoming the first person
to be awarded two Nobel
Prizes. She was brought
up in Poland before
eventually moving to
France

4. Marie wanted to discover a
miracle cure for people.
However, women were not
allowed to attend science classes
in those days. She had to attend
a ‘flying university’ instead. It
was called a ‘flying university’
because instead of having classes
in a set campus or building it had
to ‘fly’ to different people’s
houses to be conducted in
secret.

5. When Marie married her
husband Pierre, they began to
research atoms and
molecules, the building blocks of
existence.
They soon discovered that atoms
from a special metal called
uranium gave off a special sort
of energy called radiation.
Marie was excited about this
discovery as she hoped that it
would heal people of all their
diseases.

6. The Curie's research was
crucial in the development of
x-rays in surgery. During
World War One, Marie
helped to equip ambulances
with x-ray equipment, which
she herself drove to the
front lines.
The International Red Cross
made her head of its
radiological service and she
held training courses for
medical orderlies and
doctors in the new
techniques.

7. However, while Marie’s work
helped to develop an
important medical tool, she
never realised how
dangerous radiation could be.
When she died aged 57, she
had spent that last decade
suffering from the ill-
effects of radiation
exposure.
However, she did leave a
lasting legacy through her
research and by showing the
scientific world that girls
were just as good as boys at
scientific research.

8. Timeline
• Born in Poland 1867 and moved
to Paris Married a French
scientist called Pierre Curie
• First used the name
‘radioactivity’ to describe rays
given out by uranium.
• Discovered polonium, Po, and
radium, Ra
• Worked with Pierre all her life
on radioactivity
• Awarded Nobel prize for
physics with Pierre and Henri
Becquerel in 1908
• Awarded Nobel prize for
chemistry in 1911
• Died of leukaemia in 1934

10. Earth Facts
• Magma is the hot liquid rock under the
surface of the Earth, it is known as
lava after it comes out of a volcano.
• The Earth isn't perfectly round, it
is slightly flattened at the north
and south poles.
• Hawaii is moving towards Japan at
the speed of 10cm a year. This is
because they are on different
tectonic plates.
• The volcanic rock known as
pumice is the only rock that can
float in water.
• The Great Barrier Reef in
Australia is the largest living
structure in the world.
• Scientists have dated the Earth
as being between 4 and 5billion
years old!!

12. Science Picture of the Day

13. This is a picture of ‘Curiosity’ on Earth before it was
sent into space to land on the surface of Mars.
On August 5 2012, after a journey lasting more than
8 months, Curiosity landed on Mars. The vehicle is
basically a science lab. Its mission: to search for
evidence that the Red Planet might once have hosted
life — even if the organisms were only one-celled
microbes.
This six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle weighs 900
kilograms (about 1 U.S. ton). Roughly 2.8 meters (9
feet) long, it carries 10 research instruments.
Seventeen separate cameras (including one on the
rover’s belly, to scan below it) will survey the
landscape and record experiments.