Harold Urey

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/harold-urey

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. When was Harold Urey born?April 29, 1893
2. When did Harold Urey die?January 20, 1981 (age 87)
3. Where was Harold Urey born?Hammond, Indiana, USA
4. What did Harold Urey discover about hydrogen that earned him a Nobel Prize?He separated deuterium, a stable isotope of hydrogen, from ordinary water in 1931. This work earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934.
5. Why is the Miller-Urey experiment important?It showed that simple life‑building molecules, like amino acids, could form from gases that were likely on early Earth. This supported Urey's idea of a primordial soup.

Isotope Separation: The process of isolating different isotopes of a chemical element, crucial for nuclear research and understanding atomic structure.
Reducing Atmosphere: An atmosphere that readily donates electrons to other substances, characterized by the presence of hydrogen and compounds like methane and ammonia.
Abiogenesis: The scientific study of the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.
Astrobiology: The interdisciplinary scientific study of the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.