Books in Mission: Science series

Hippocrates is known as the father of medicine. He separated religion from medicine and tried to find scientific reasons for why people became ill. By observing a patient’s symptoms he was often able to diagnose illnesses and find cures. He encouraged his patients to take care of their bodies and urged fellow doctors to practice good hygiene and have a positive bedside manner. He founded a medical school in Greece to share his knowledge of medicine and philosophy. His code of ethics became known as the Hippocratic Oath. For more information, read The Human Body, another book in the Mission: Science series.

French scientist Louis Pasteur, often called the founder of modern medicine, has been credited with many discoveries. One of the most important was the discovery in the 1800s that tiny organisms called germs spread disease. His scientific work helped save millions of lives. For more information on germs and other simple organisms, read Investigating Simple Organisms, another book in the Mission: Science series.

Marine biologist Rachel Carson studied the use of chemical pesticides and their impact on ocean life. She was particularly concerned about DDT, and she wrote about it in her most famous book, Silent Spring. The public conversation that resulted from its publication in 1958 helped lead to restrictions on the use of pesticides in many parts of the world. For more information on protecting the environment, read Earth, another book in the Mission: Science series.

Thomas Edison was called a wizard, which was a good nickname for one of history’s most famous inventors and the holder of more than 1,000 patents. Often improving upon the ideas of others, Edison and his assistants perfected the incandescent lightbulb, and created the first successful electrical power system, the alkaline battery, and the phonograph, which played recorded sound. Edison’s modern industrial research laboratory was one of the first, and he helped to start the motion picture industry. For more information, read Electromagnetism, another book in the Mission: Science series.

Born into slavery, George Washington Carver worked hard, earned a university graduate degree, and eventually became a world-famous expert on plants. By experimenting with peanuts and other plants, he learned how to make many useful products from them. Carver taught students and farmers how to grow plants without damaging the soil. For more information on plants, read The World of Plants, another book in the Mission: Science series.

One of the greatest thinkers of all time, Isaac Newton gave the world an accurate understanding of forces and motion throughout the universe. He went to college but learned much about science on his own, by observing, experimenting, and thinking carefully. Newton’s laws of motion explain, in a few sentences, how and why things move, or don’t move, when forces act on them. He also studied and described gravity and the makeup of light, and he created a kind of math known today as calculus. For more information, read Forces and Motion, another book in the Mission Science series.