Nowadays it is increasingly common for people to work on their own, but many of these people give up because they do not know anything about the subject or find something too complex to do or achieve. But MARIE's story is a great example of achievements and effort and learning for these people.
Maria Salomea Skłodowska was born in Warsaw (Poland) on November 7, 1867, she was the youngest daughter among her five siblings. Marie had a very difficult childhood, as she lost her mother at just 10 years old. She also had a lot of difficulties studying because she had a bad financial life, and because the best women were not admitted to universities in Poland.
However, influenced by her father, who was a professor of mathematics and physics, she decided to continue her studies. She started first at a clandestine university in Poland, then continued her studies autonomously.
Later he entered a university in Paris where he graduated in Mathematics in Physics. Where she also worked as a governess and teacher, means of paying for her studies.
After graduating, to continue her investigations, Marie needed a laboratory, it was when a friend, in 1894, introduced her and Pierre Curie, a renowned physicist of the time who ended up becoming her husband and sharing science.
So Marie followed her goals by learning and discovering new things. It was then that for so much effort and dedication Marie got her first Nobel Prize in 1903, awarded together with her husband and Henri Becquerel, due to their incredible discoveries in the fields of Radiation. And then after these events she gets a doctorate in science.
But unfortunately after a few years her beloved Pierre passes away and she takes his place teaching General Physics at the prestigious Sabonne university, after a long time Marie was the first woman to attend this university.
A few years passed and in 1911 Marie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering new elements in the field of chemistry, called radium and polonium.
Over the years Marie founded the Curie Institute in Paris in 1914. In her institute she sought to investigate the medical applications of radium in cancer patients.
During the years of World War I, Marie created mobile radiography units to be used among wounded soldiers. With her daughter Irène, she went to hospitals with the aim of convincing doctors to use her invention to save the lives of combatants (soldiers). And with all her efforts Marie managed to save several lives during the First World War.
Last Years of Marie Curie
And in recent years Marie was already elderly, and a victim of leukemia, due to a large exposure to radioactivity, and finally ended her career at the age of 66, on July 4, 1934, in Passy ( French commune).
Being remembered as a Polish scientist naturalized from France who contributed to the studies of radioactivity and remembered for being the first woman to receive a NOBEL PRIZE. He was also responsible for discovering radioactive elements such as radium and polonium, named after the country where he was born.
But his lineage did not stop there, a year after his death, one of his daughters, Irène Joliet-Curie, was the youngest to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of artificial radioactivity. Her award was shared with her husband Frédéric Joliet. Throughout her life Irène Joliet-Curie or known as Madame Curie, continued her life writing books on Radioactivity such as her well-known book “Radioactivité”, published posthumously, which was considered a very efficient and important book in the study of radioactivity.
Over the years Irèbe also dies, and has her remains deposited in the Pantheon in Paris, once again being the first woman to receive this kind of honor.
Influence on Education
Less known in his biography is his contribution, which was quite influential and of great value to the teaching of science. Marie Curies was a teacher who used to give private lessons to wealthy families in Poland and France, which she did at the secondary level.
For Marie, education had to be engaging. But this would only be possible through proposed experiences and contact with things or objects, instead of just knowledge based on just theories.
Along with some other scientists, Marie had a “teaching cooperative” project that aimed to teach science to the children of the families she taught, but a science that went beyond theory, through the realization of experiments.
But today we only know all of this thanks to the notes of one of her students, Isabelle Chavannes, who let us know what the methods that Marie Curie applied in and during her classes were and how they worked.
Thus, through the experiences guided by Marie and the teachers, children were led to find out about atmospheric pressure, the path of water to the faucet..
One of her teaching examples is also described in the Chavannes magazine of the year 2007, when Marie asks:
Here we have a bottle… It looks empty. “What's inside?” (Chavannes, 2007, p.27)
After the students' response that there is air, Marie continues:
“How can you know there is something inside?”
She proposes that they dip their empty bottles into a reservoir of water. Isabelle describes that first, when opening the cap of the bottle from inside the reservoir, keeping the neck upwards, and then the water will enter, “but we see bubbles come out [...]. There was air in the bottle and this is the air that comes out. As he, in turn, is lighter than water, he rises to the surface” (Chavannes, 2007, p. 27).
Marie is certainly a great example for all of us of persistence and effort and without a doubt for her ability to acquire skills and experiences despite her difficulties, thus becoming one of the most famous self-taught people in the world.