Most of us would be alarmed to receive a phone call at 5:30 a.m., but if you’re a lifelong researcher every October you dream it might be your phone ringing. The call would be from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences congratulating you for being named a Nobel Prize winner. Even sweeter? Sharing the prize with your colleagues.

If the work described in the news stories seems too esoteric, visit Learner.org to understand the basics of the fields of inquiry and see how they connect with what today’s students are learning.

Nobel Prize in Medicine

Americans Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries about the molecular mechanisms controlling the body’s circadian rhythm.  Get into the groove of circadian rhythms by watching video module 13, “Sleep and Circadian Rhythms,” from The Brain Teaching Modules. Hall, Rosbash, and Young isolated a gene in fruit flies that regulates our daily biological rhythm. Learn about the tools used to sift through the massive amount of DNA — even in drosophilae (fruit flies) — to find specific functions of genes in our Interactive: DNA.

Nobel Prize in Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics was shared by Rainer Weiss, the team of Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne ” for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.” Read about the propagation of gravitational waves and how they are detected in the online text of Physics for the 21^st Century. Take a look down the 4-kilometer arm of the LIGO interferometer, one of the two detectors of elusive ancient gravitational waves in the video “Gravity,” guided by Dr. Nergis Mavalvala, a MacArthur genius grant awardee. (Start video at 14:30 min.)

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution.”  Students are familiar with the stick-and-ball models of chemicals, and while more detailed models have been developed using computers, these do not tell us how different molecules interact. Using cryo-electron microscopy, “researchers can now freeze biomolecules mid-movement and visualize processes they have never previously seen, which is decisive for both the basic understanding of life’s chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals,” according to nobelprize.org.

Check out the Rediscovering Biology website to better understand the complexities of protein-protein interactions and how these understandings can lead to more targeted drug design. Then, follow the case study activity Designing Cancer Drugs: Development of Gleevec to understand the process of drug development from the research phase of targeting specific proteins to drug testing.

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Richard H. Thaler of the University of Chicago “for his contributions to behavioral economics.” Behavioral economics blends insights from psychological research and economic decision making. “A behavioral perspective incorporates a more realistic analysis of how people think and behave when making economic decisions, providing new opportunities for designing measures and institutions that increase societal benefit,” according to nobelprize.org.

Early in his career, Thaler worked with Daniel Kahneman, another Nobel Economics Prize-winning researcher. Both Kahneman and Thaler study the way individuals make decisions based on what they believe is rational thinking, but can often be erroneous. In “Judgement and Decision Making, “ program 11 of Discovering Psychology, this way of thinking is illustrated by risk and reward scenarios.

A further illustration of how individuals view financial risk taking can be found in the behavior of casino gamblers. “Probability Models,” from Against All Odds: Inside Statistics reveals that while the house advantage over the gambler is less than 1%, casinos make their money on the volume of people who place small bets.

Nobel Peace Prize

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize goes to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of non-governmental organizations from nearly 100 different countries. “The coalition has been a driving force in prevailing upon the world’s nations to pledge to cooperate with all relevant stakeholders in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons. The organization is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons,” the award announcement said.

Read about the science and engineering behind uranium enrichment, which is required for nuclear power plants. It’s also the process by which nuclear weapons are made. The online text from The Habitable Planet, unit 10, “Energy Challenges,” explains the environmental impacts of nuclear power plants such as storage of spent radioactive nuclear fuel, the concern over nuclear accidents, and the potential for nations to create nuclear weapons.

Making The Connection To Your Classroom

Whether you would like to help your students become better decision makers, to understand the behavior of sub-cellular molecules, or to encourage nations to work together for a safer world, Learner.org can help you connect the work of Nobel Laureates to what you students are learning today and inspire them in the future.

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