Feynman unit study, maybe?

Do you think unit studies are only for elementary age children? Well, here's one to challenge you that I just came up with. A unit study on Nobel Prize winning Physicist Richard Feynman.

My first introduction to Feynman was through a book called "Tuva or Bust" written by Ralph Leighton. It tells of the story of Feynman and Leighton's attempt to visit Tuva. Leighton's depiction of Feynman was intriquing. The man was obviously brilliant, but more importantly interested in everything and full of great questions. I don't share his worldview as a scientific rationalist, but I think his wonder and interest in Creation (he would say Nature) is admirable and worth imitation.

Without giving you an entire biography on Feynman let me point out some of the possible topics you could explore, all related to him:

• Tuva - geography and culture
• Throat Singing - Tuvan and other
• Nomadic Peoples - Tuvan and other
• His Nobel Prize - what is a nobel prize and how they are awarded as well
• The nature of light
  
• Development of the nuclear bomb
• Other important physicists of the 20th century
• Safe-cracking and Drumming
• Feynman Diagrams
• Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster
• Nanotechnology

I'll leave you with this quote from Feynmann, from his lecture to science teachers:

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
~Richard Feynman

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