TCEA Curiosity Challenge
Nobel Prize Challenges — Teacher Key
Answer key for all five challenges. Verified against NobelPrize.org; includes 2023-2025 laureates.
1 · Who Am I? — Answers
Score by earliest correct guess: 4 pts after Clue 1, 3 after Clue 2, 2 after Clue 3, 1 after Clue 4.
- Marie Curie — Physics 1903 (radiation phenomena, shared) & Chemistry 1911 (radium & polonium, sole).
- Albert Einstein — Physics 1921 (law of the photoelectric effect, not relativity).
- Alexander Fleming — Physiology or Medicine 1945 (penicillin, shared with Chain & Florey).
- Barbara McClintock — Physiology or Medicine 1983 (mobile genetic elements; only unshared Medicine prize won by a woman).
- Toni Morrison — Literature 1993 (first African American woman in Literature).
- Wangari Maathai — Peace 2004 (Green Belt Movement).
- Amartya Sen — Economic Sciences 1998 (welfare economics, social choice, famine research).
- Malala Yousafzai — Peace 2014 (children's right to education; youngest laureate ever, age 17).
- Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna — Chemistry 2020 (CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing).
2 · Which Field? — Answers
| Contribution | Category |
|---|
| Photoelectric effect — light as packets of energy (Einstein) | Physics |
| Discovering and isolating radium | Chemistry |
| Penicillin and its cure for bacterial infections | Physiology or Medicine |
| Novels of visionary force giving life to American reality (Morrison) | Literature |
| Grassroots tree-planting linking environment to democracy and peace | Peace |
| Welfare economics; why famines happen even when food exists | Economic Sciences |
| Mobile genetic elements ("jumping genes") in corn | Physiology or Medicine |
| Nucleoside base modifications enabling mRNA vaccines (Karikó & Weissman) | Physiology or Medicine |
| CRISPR-Cas9 DNA editing (Charpentier & Doudna) [borderline] | Chemistry |
| AI protein folding (AlphaFold; Hassabis & Jumper) & protein design (Baker) [borderline] | Chemistry |
| Machine learning with artificial neural networks (Hopfield & Hinton) | Physics |
| Metal–organic frameworks capturing gases and water from air | Chemistry |
| Promoting democratic rights in Venezuela (María Corina Machado) | Peace |
| "Creative destruction" — technology driving growth (Aghion, Howitt & Mokyr) | Economic Sciences |
Surprising ones: CRISPR (2020) and AlphaFold / protein design (2024) were awarded in Chemistry; the 2024 neural-network prize was awarded in Physics.
3 · Explain It Like I'm Twelve — Accuracy checklist
Creation task, no single key. Grade student explanations against these accurate plain summaries.
mRNA vaccines: An mRNA vaccine delivers a set of temporary 'instructions' into some of your cells, telling them to build a harmless piece of a virus (like the coronavirus spike). Your immune system sees that piece, learns to recognize it, and is ready to fight the real virus later. The instructions break down quickly and do not change your DNA. (Technical word: messenger RNA (mRNA))
CRISPR gene editing: CRISPR-Cas9 is a tool borrowed from bacteria that works like a find-and-replace for DNA. A guide molecule finds one exact spot in the genome, and a protein called Cas9 cuts the DNA there so scientists can turn a gene off or swap in a change. (Technical word: genome)
The photoelectric effect: When light hits certain metals, it can knock electrons loose—but only if the light's color (its energy) is high enough, no matter how bright it is. This showed that light travels in tiny energy packets, not just smooth waves. It is the idea behind solar panels and light sensors. (Technical word: photon (light packet))
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs): MOFs are materials built from metal points connected by carbon-based struts, forming a crystal full of tiny holes—like a microscopic sponge with huge inner surface area. Those holes can trap specific gases or even pull drinking water out of dry desert air. (Technical word: porosity)
4 · Before and After — Model answer
Model: The evidence directly supports that turning penicillin into a usable medicine took a team over many years—Fleming's 1928 discovery was unstable, and it was Florey and Chain's purification and 1941 trials that made it work. The claim that 'Fleming alone cured infectious disease' is only associated: he made the first observation, but the evidence shows others were needed to make it a real treatment.
- Evidence CAN support: Penicillin's journey from discovery to cure required multiple scientists working across nearly two decades (1928-1945).
- Evidence CANNOT prove: That any single person single-handedly created and delivered the penicillin cure.
5 · The Award Committee — Rubric
No single answer; require all six parts, including an honest limitation.
- Nominee — the person, group, or idea.
- Category — which field or kind of contribution.
- Contribution — what they actually did.
- Evidence — a fact or source that backs it up.
- Why it matters — the real-world impact.
- Limitation / counterpoint — a fair criticism, trade-off, or unknown.
Nobel Prize Classroom Challenges · A TCEA Curiosity Challenge · © 2026 TCEA · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Verified against NobelPrize.org