ScienceMakers Toolkit Manual - The History Makers

Physics
high-energy particle beam and detector systems. White worked as both Kaon researcher and diplomat in collaborating
with Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi in Central Mexico to build components of the detector
for Fermilab’s proposed charged Kaons at the main injector experiment. White worked as a senior scientist
at the highest energy particle accelerator in the world, where atoms are smashed to reveal more about nature’s
fundamental building blocks.
Among his honors, White received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation travel fellowship to CERN, Geneva, Switzerland,
in 1972, and he was awarded a university fellowship in physics at Yale University from 1976 to 1978.
White was selected as the third Illinois Industrial Research Corridor Fellow for North Central College in 1994.
In addition, he served as Adjunct Professor of Physics at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. White
held a membership in the American Physical Society’s Public Face of Physics Team, and he served on various
physics communication and advisory panels for the American Physical Society and governmental agencies.
Discussion Questions
Personal:
1. What did you like best about listening to Dr. White?
2. What do you think Dr. White’s favorite quote means? What does this tell you about him?
3. Where was Dr. White born? Locate it on a map. How far away is this from where you live? What are the
names of his parents? Where did Dr. White attend high school? What do you suppose high school was
like for him?
4. How old are you? In what year was Dr. White your age? What was happening in the country that year?
What was happening in the world that year? What do you suppose his life was like when he was your
age?
5. Dr. White talks about an early interest in science, but he calls it something else. What does he call it?
What are you curious about? Do you wonder how things work, like Dr. White did? How can you fi nd
the answers? (See Clip #1)
6. Dr. White talks about using a lens to focus the sun’s light and trying to fi gure out how light in the sky
behaves. What kinds of things do you wonder about light? Do you ever wonder how shadows work?
What about refl ections? How about rainbows? How could you fi nd the answers to these questions?
(See Clip #1)
7. Dr. White talks about growing up in Tuskegee, Alabama, home of Tuskegee University. What does he
say was one of the advantages of living in a college town? Do you have any colleges in your
community? Are there scientists working there? What kinds of science do they study? What
discoveries are they making about the world? Find out and report back to the class. (See Clip #1)
8. Dr. White talks about his college experience in terms of the Civil Rights Movement. How did the Civil
Rights Movement impact the academic community, according to Dr. White? What was the specifi c
choice that he made in leaving his hometown for college? What did it mean to be a pioneer in college at
that time? Do you know any other pioneers like this? Who? Have you thought about whether you will
go to college? If so, where? Would you want to stay close to home or travel far away? Why?
(See Clip #2)
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