Gujarat Board Solutions Class 10 English Footprints Without Feet Chapter 6 The Making of a Scientist

Gujarat Board Solutions Class 10 English Footprints Without Feet Chapter 6 The Making of a Scientist

Gujarat Board Textbook Solutions Class 10 English Footprints Without Feet Chapter 6 The Making of a Scientist

The Making of a Scientist Summary:
Richard H. Ebright published theory of how cells work in an article in the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Science’ at the age of twenty-two. Richard H. Ebright grew up in Reading in Pennsylvania. There he was not able to do anything. He was not able to play football or baseball too. But he said that there he could do one thing – collect things. So he collected things.

In Kindergarten, Ebright collected butterflies. He also collected rocks, fossils, and coins. He would observe sky at night too. He would live with his mother, who encouraged his interest in learning. She would take him on trips, bought him telescope, microscope, cameras, mounting materials, and other materials required for learning.

He lost his father when he was in third grade. Her mother would call him Richie. Her mother would discuss with him every night and give him mental exercise instead of physical exercise which he wanted to learn.

By the time he was in the second grade, Ebright had collected all twenty-five species of butterflies found around his hometown. Richard said that this would have been the end of his butterfly collection. But his mother gave him a children’s book called “The Travels of Monarch X. That book, which told how monarch

butterflies! migrate to Central America, opened the world of science to Richard. At the end of the book, readers were invited to help study butterfly migration. They were asked to tag butterflies for research by Dr Frederick A. Urquhart of the University of Toronto, Canada. Anyone who found a tagged butterfly was asked to send the tag to Dr Urquhart. If you tried to catch them one by one, you won’t catch very much. So Richard raised a flock of butterflies.

He would catch a female monarch, take her eggs, and raise them in his basement through their life cycle, from* egg to caterpillar to pupa to adult butterfly. Then he would tag the butterflies’ wings and let them go. For several years his basement was home to thousands of monarchs in different stages of development.

He got a hint of what real science is when he entered a county science fair and lost. He said that it was a sad feeling to sit there and not get anything while everybody else had won something,” Ebright said. His entry was slides of frog tissues, which he showed under a microscope.

He realized that winners had tried to do real experiments. And he decided that for the next year, he has to do something – extraordinary than others. So he asked Dr Urquhart for suggestions and back came a stack of suggestions.

For his eighth grade project, Ebright tried to find the cause of a viral disease that kills nearly all monarch caterpillars every few years. Ebright thought the disease might be carried by a beetle. So he raised caterpillars in the presence of beetles. But he didn’t get any real results. But he went ahead and showed that he had tried the experiment.

The next year his science fair project was testing the theory that viceroy butterflies copy monarchs. The theory was that viceroys look like monarchs because monarchs don’t taste good to birds. Viceroys, on the other hand, do taste good to birds. So the more they look like monarchs, the less likely they are to become a bird’s dinner. Ebright’s project was to see whether, in fact, birds would eat monarchs.

He found that a starling would not eat ordinary bird food. It would eat all the monarchs it could get. (Ebright said later research by other people showed that viceroys probably do copy the monarch.) This project was placed first in the zoology division and third overall in the county science fair.

In his second year in high school, Richard Ebright began the research that led to his discovery of an unknown insect hormone. Indirectly, it also led to his new theory on the life of cells. The question he tried to answer was simple: What is the purpose of the twelve tiny gold spots on a monarch pupa?

“Everyone assumed the spots were just ornamental,” Ebright said. “But Dr Urquhart didn’t believe it.”
To find the answer, Ebright and another excellent science student first had to build a device that showed that the spots were producing a hormone necessary for the butterfly’s full development.

This project won Ebright first place in the county fair and entry into the International Science and Engineering Fair. There he won third place for zoology. He also got a chance to work during the summer at the entomology laboratory of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. As a high school junior, Richard Ebright continued his advanced experiments on the monarch pupa. That year his project won first place at the International Science Fair and gave him another chance to work in the army laboratory during the summer.

GSEB Class 10 English The Making of a Scientist Text Book Questions and Answers

Read and Find Out (Textbook Page No. 32)

Question 1.
How did a book become a turning point in Richard Ebright’s life?
Answer:
Ebright loved collecting butterflies and ? by the time he was in the second grade, he had s collected all twenty-five species found around his hometown. This probably would have been the send of his butterfly collecting, but his mother got him a children’s book called “The Travels s of Monarch X” which was about how monarch? butterflies migrate to Central America.

The book invited readers to help study s butterfly migrations and actively participate ! in tagging butterflies to help in the research s being Conducted by Dr Frederick A. Urquhart. Ebright then went on to raise an entire flock s of butterflies in the basement of his home. In this way, the book managed to keep his s enthusiasm in the study of butterflies alive for several years and opened the world of science s to the eager young collector who never lost his scientific curiosity.

Question 2.
How did his mother help him?
Answer:
His mother encouraged his interest in learning. She took him on trips, bought s him telescopes, microscopes, cameras, mounting materials, and other equipment and helped him in many other ways. When he didn’t have things to do, she helped him by finding work for him, not physical work but learning things.

His mother also got him a children’s book called “The Travels of Monarch X” which was about how monarch butterflies migrate to Central America. This book opened the world of science to the eager young collector and became a turning point in his life.

Read and Find Out (Textbook Page No. 34)

Question 1.
What lesson does Ebright learn when he does not win anything at a science fair?
Answer:
Albright realizes that mere display of something does not mean science. To win at a science fair he will have to do real experiments.

Question 2.
What experiments and projects does he then undertake?
Answer:
For his eighth grade project, Ebright tried to find the cause of a viral disease that killed nearly all monarch caterpillars every few years. He thought the disease might be carried by a beetle and so tried to raise caterpillars in the presence of beetles but did not get any real results. The next year his science fair project was testing the theory that viceroy butterflies copy monarchs.

The theory was that viceroys look like monarchs because monarchs don’t taste good to birds. Viceroys, do taste good to birds. So the more they look like monarchs, the less likely they are to become a bird’s dinner. Ebright’s project was to see whether, in fact, birds would eat monarchs. He found that a starling would not eat ordinary bird food. It would eat all the monarchs it could get.

In his second year in high school, Richard Ebright began the research that led to his discovery of an unknown insect hormone. Indirectly, it also led to his new theory on the life of cells. To understand the purpose of the twelve tiny gold spots on a monarch pupa he built a device that showed that the spots were producing a hormone necessary for the butterfly’s full development.

In his senior year, he grew cells from a monarch’s wing in a culture ^nd showed that the cells would divide and develop into normal butterfly wing scales only if they were fed the hormone from the gold spots. After his freshman year at Harvard University, Ebright went back to the laboratory of the Department of Agriculture and using the laboratory’s sophisticated instruments, was able to identify the hormone’s chemical structure. During his junior year, Ebright got the idea for his new theory about cell- life.

Question 3.
What are the qualities that go into the making of a scientist?
Answer:
The qualities that go into the making of a scientist are to start with a first-rate mind, add curiosity, and mix in the will to win for the right reasons. Besides driving curiosity, it also requires that one has a bright mind. One should be competitive, and not interested in winning for winning’s sake or winning to get a prize but because one wanted to do the best job one could. For the right reasons, he or she must always want to be the best.

Think about it

Question 1.
How can one become a scientist, an economist, a historian … ? Does it simply involve reading many books on the subject? Does it involve observing, thinking and doing experiments?
Answer:
Reading many books on a subject is not enough. One must develop the skill of observation and thinking. Experiments need to be done. One needs to have curiosity to explore and find new things. Above all, one must work hard and hot get upset by failures.

Question 2.
You must have read about cells and DNA in your science books. Discuss Richard Ebright’s work in the light of what you have, studied. If you get an opportunity to work like Richard Ebright on projects and experiments, which field would you like to work on and why?
Answer:
DNA carry the blueprint of life and heredity. They pass information from one generation to the other. If I get an opportunity to work like Richard Ebright, I would choose to study about diseases. By studying the DNA, may find ways and means to cure many illnesses.

Talk about it

Question 1.
Children everywhere wonder about the world around them. The questions they ask are the beginning of scientific inquiry. Given below are some questions that children in India have asked Professor. Yash Pal and IDR Rahul Pal as reported in their book, Discovered Questions.
(1) What is DNA fingerprinting? What ate its uses?
(2) How do honey bees identify their own honeycombs?
(3) Why does rainfall in drops?
Can you answer these questions? You will find Professor. Yash Pal’s and Dr Rahul’s answers (as given in Discovered Questions) on Page 75.
Answer:
1. DNA fingerprinting is a forensic technique used to identify, individuals by the characteristics of their DNA. It is used “in parentage testing. It is also used in criminal investigations to identify a person or to place him at the scene of crime.

2. Honey bees have signalling chemicals. They leave trails for fellow honey bees so that they can reach their honeycomb.

3. The only solid thing in the air are dust particles. Water vapour uses it as a centre of attraction when it becomes too heavy, Water vapour condenses on the dust particle as a drop and falls on Earth.

Question 2.
You also must have wondered about certain things around you. Share these questions with your class, and try and answer them.
Answer:
Some of the questions are:
(1) Why is the sky blue?
(2) Why do stars twinkle?
(3) What is a rainbow?
(4) Why do fruits fall on Earth?

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