Chemistry, what a fascinating science discipline!  Isaac Newton, one the greatest scientists in history said in 1676: “If I have seen far, it’s because I stood on the shoulders of giants“.  And you bet that’s true for Chemistry, and for any other discipline as well.  Chemistry was not built by one chemist, or two, it is in constant growth with the contribution of millions of scientists worldwide.  Some of them achieve fame, others don’t, but they are all necessary to advance our knowledge.  They come from different venues of life, they speak different languages, they use different talents, and they work in teams not to find “the right answer” but an answer that they could support with scientific evidence.  What a wonderful model of a learning culture to bring to the classroom!  Here are just a few of the resources that you can find via NSDL to teach the history of Chemistry.  Start with Democritus from the ancient Greece, one of the first atomic theorists, using the Matter: Atoms from Democritus to Dalton lesson (also in Spanish), which includes links, questions, and quizzes, available from the MSP2 Pathway.  Lavoisier, who in the 1700s ended the Phlogiston theory, is often quoted as the father of modern chemistry.  He and other chemists can be studied using Elements and Atoms: Case Studies in the Development of Chemistry, from the AMSER Pathway.  Lagrange, a mathematician contemporary to Lavoisier, said upon his friend’s tragic death: “It took only an instant to cut off that head, and a hundred years may not produce another like it.” Dalton followed Lavoisier, developing in the early 1800s the Dalton’s Atomic Theory, available from the NSDL Chemistry collection. (Follow title link to read more).

At the turn of the 20th century, Marie Curie with her amazing works laid the ground for the public admission of females in science.  Read about her and see the pictures in the Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity resource in the ALSOS collection.  Our ComPADRE Pathway offers Einstein: The Man of the Century, a biography of this unique human being.  Also remarkable are the works of Linus Pauling who remains the only person ever to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes: one for Chemistry (1954) and the other for Peace (1962).  Visits Linus Pauling: A Centenary Exhibit online from our NSDL History of Science collection.  Also, explore pictures, activities, movies and the teacher’s guide from the Stephen Hawking’s Universe site from our DLESE Pathway, a comprehensive resource about the life and work of Stephen Hawking, who is one of the greatest contemporary scientists in spite of his physical impairment.  You can find more examples of scientists’ great ethnic and gender diversity in the ChemEd DL Pathway resource: Biographical Snapshots of Famous Women and Minority Chemists, and a collection of seminal original papers and interesting curiosities in the history of Chemistry in the Selected Classic Papers database from our BEN Pathway.