This book features in the Upper KS2 Silicon Valley collection which is part of The Reading Journey
A time-travelling adventure with interactive experiments for budding young scientists, by Nobel Prize-winning Barry Marshall.
Mary has always wanted to win a Nobel Prize and loves running her own science experiments at home. One day Mary stumbles on a secret meeting of Nobel Prize winners. Dr Barry Marshall agrees to travel with her through time to learn the secrets behind some of the most fascinating and important scientific discoveries.
They talk time and space with Albert Einstein, radiation with Marie Curie, DNA with Crick, Watson and Wilkins - and much more. Filled with experiments to try at home and featuring famous Nobel prize-winners: Albert Einstein * Marie Curie * Guglielmo Marconi Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins * Alexander Fleming * Tu Youyou * Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar * Gertrude Elion * Norman Borlaug * Rita Levi-Montalcini * Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa * Barry Marshall and Robin Warren
Tagged science
Reviewed by Roy James
How To Win A Nobel Prize is nonfiction with a narrative that might inspire a future Nobel winner.
Combining nonfiction with a story element, How to Win a Nobel Prize aims to show its readers what it takes to become a world-changing scientist.
Barry Marshall, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (finding the cause of stomach ulcers) in 2005, takes Mary to visit past winners after she stumbles on a secret meeting. Each scientist – some well known and some less well known – explain their work, and offer Mary advice so that she can fulfil her ambition of becoming a scientist.
But the narrative is only a vehicle for the fascinating stories of each scientist, and the Nobel prizes. After each chapter, there’s an experiment to try at home – or in the classroom, of course. And these are impressive experiments… did you know it’s entirely possible to extract DNA from a strawberry using a few readily available ingredients? Me neither.
How To Win A Nobel Prize would be great for the upper junior classroom library. Easy to read, it would be perfect for a research tool as well. But the experiments will be what inspires the pupils and make for some great lessons.