Catholic Scientist Assignment
Instructions:
For this assessment, you need to research a Catholic scientist.
Your report should consist of 200-400 words.
It is important that before you start your research that you read over the marking grid so you know how your will be assessed by your teacher.
You must put your work into your own words; your teacher will have the Google Classroom plagiarism feature turned on to check for copy/pasted information.
Ensure that you write your bibliography as you complete your research.
You may include pictures and diagrams in your work.
the report document will be uploaded into your Google Classroom work, along with a blank dot-jot document with room for 4 sources (you may do more than this, just copy and paste the blank form)
the dot-jots are your evidence for finding and processing multiple sources of information. This is essential for Merit or Excellence grades and you are extremely unlikely to get those grades without filling in a dot-jot.
Note the due date on Google Classroom. You have plenty of time - do not rush.
A list of possible scientists is shown below. You may choose someone not on this list provided your teacher approves - you must request by email. There are links to several other lists at the bottom of the list.
Ensure you can find enough information before committing yourself to one person.
There will be some notes about dot-jots and research technique added at the bottom of this page (this may take some time - PK is busy).
Br. Guy Consolmagno - head of the Vatican Observatory. He has visited NZ and there are some radio New Zealand interviews with him here (using audio as one of your sources could be a good way to show you are integrating different sources in your research
Fr. Georges Lemaître - proposed what is now called the "Big Bang Theory"
Sister Mary Kenneth Keller - pioneering computer scientist
Fr. Pierre Tielhard de Chardin - Jesuit geologist and paleontologist who used his understanding of human evolution to propose some fairly radical (and controversial) ideas about the relationship between humans, God and the universe.
Gregor Mendel - discovered some of the fundamental laws of genetics
Blessed Nicolas Steno - Dutch bishop who proposed some of the founding principles of modern geology
Gerty Cori - biochemist, who (along with her husband) won the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
Fr. Julian Tenison-Woods - Australian geologist and priest
John Eccles - Australian neurophysiologist and Nobel Laureate
You may do any of the above. If you choose someone not on the list above you will need your teacher's permission.
Further resources:
Some sub-questions to help you research:
Marking grid below. To reach a grade, all the boxes in that column need to be ticked off by the marker.
Other Catholic Scientists
Nicolaus Copernicus
Alessandro Volta
Robert Grosseteste
Ányos Jedlik
Nicholas of Cusa
Blaise Pascal
Thomas Streit
Georgius Agricola
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
Andre-Marie Ampere
Website link to Franciscan University with more examples here
Wikipedia list of Catholic bishops, priests, brothers and nuns who were scientists.
Wikipedia list of Catholic lay scientists