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These are certainly important inventors, but my reaction to this list is
mostly ho-hum.  These are generally the same dead white men (and token dead
white woman) I've heard about a hundred times before.  Robert Ohl and Sir
William Robert Grove are new to me, but the others will be in every science
book the kids have ever seen.  I went explicitly searching for women,
Hispanic and African energy inventors and found some things that might be of
interest.  There are dozens more examples out there - this is just a sample
of things that caught my interest.

http://www.jadcommunications.com/articles/womeninventors.htm suggests some
women that might be added to your list

You might want to look specifically at William Kamkwamba, not because he's
done anything radically new, but because of where and how he is doing it -
bringing wind power to his village with available technology instead of
waiting for a big grant to buy technology that no one can afford/knows how
to maintain:  http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

Then there's Rex Gerald, a Hispanic scientist who invented an MRI technique
for studying batteries, a tool that may make electric cars more effective
and economical: www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2006/news061012.pdf

Rex Gerald also works with student interns and finds the idea that
inventions come from singular flashes of insight or singular geniuses to be
an impediment to developing future inventors.  That same theme is echoed in
this article from the New Yorker about invention and creativity:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true
Sometimes what makes a famous inventor famous is just luck or timing.  They
weren't necessarily the first or the best, just the first to get a patent or
the best able to market their invention.  Rather than hold up 10 people as
singular, exemplary, geniuses, perhaps it would be more helpful and maybe
even more interesting to your audience to identify some elements of the
invention process and use more diverse, if less well-known, inventors to
show how they did what they did.

Dave Smith


On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Kimberly Kuta <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
>
> *****************************************************************************
>
> We are developing a traveling elementary school exhibit about energy, part
> of which focuses on important energy inventors. In your opinion, who are the
> top 10 inventors that must be included? We want to provide children and
> educators with both traditional/foundational and contemporary examples and
> happenings.
>
> Here is our initial short list of 8 (not in any particular order), based on
> feedback from scientists and some other organizations.
>
>    *   Thomas Edison, 1880s-improved incandescent bulbs; first power plant;
> widespread and reliable electric light via bulbs; power plant gave
> electricity to 85 customers in 1882 (enough to power 5000 bulbs)
>    *   Nikola Tesla, 1887-AC power; allowed electricity to be easily
> transmitted over long distances; widespread industrial and manufacturing
> uses for electricity
>    *   Benjamin Franklin, 1752-discovered positive and negative electrical
> charges and that lightning is a form of electricity (kit and key
> experiment); invented lightning rod
>    *   Michael Faraday, 1851-electromagnetic induction (the first
> generator, leading to modern electric motor, generator and transformer)
>    *   Marie Curie, 1900s-discovered pure radium, the first radioactive
> element; Nobel Prize in 1903
>    *   Russell Ohl, 1950s-solar cells
>    *   Sir William Robert Grove, 1843-first fuel cell
>    *   Henry Ford, 1891-small gasoline engine and assembly line
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Kimberly Kuta
> Content Specialist
> Stepping Stones Museum for Children
> Mathews Park, 303 West Avenue
> Norwalk, CT 06850
> 203 899 0606, ext. 235
>
> Visit us at www.steppingstonesmuseum.org<
> http://www.steppingstonesmuseum.org>
>
>
-- 
David L. Smith
Da Vinci Science Center
Allentown, PA
http://www.davinci-center.org

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