Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) grew up in Tuscan, with his father. He practiced sculpture, architecture, engineering, and scientific inquiry, but was most known for his paintings. Born during the Renaissance era he studied under the sculptor Andrea Verrocchio. He quickly gained artistic skills and joined Compagnia di San Luca in Florentine at 20.

For most of his artistic career, Leonardo bounced back and forth between Florence and Milan. He first moved to Milan in 1483. There, he undertook projects like The Virgin of the Rocks and the famous illustration for “On the Divine Proportions” named the Golden Ratio. After living 16 years in Milan, the French invaded, prompting Leonardo to go back to Florence, where he created his iconic portrait, the ‘Mona Lisa’.

Leonardo returned to Milan in 1508, serving under French rulers. As a result, his work was influenced by religious practices, and he began working on a composition known as The Virgin and the Child. Despite battling ill health, including paralysis from a stroke, Leonardo continued his scientific exploration of anatomy, architecture, and other fields. Some of his works include a helicopter blueprint, parachute, flying machine, and scuba gear. In 1519, Leonardo died, leaving his estate to his pupil Francesco Melzi.

George Washington Carver (1864-1943) was well-known for being ahead of his time in the world of natural science. He sought to find cash crop alternatives to discourage straining labor of cotton picking. In addition, he invented tools and methods to make agriculture more efficient.

As a Black man born in the early 1860s, Carver faced significant barriers to obtaining his education and pursuing his research interests. He developed his understanding of agricultural labor for three years on his own plot of land before becoming the first Black student at Iowa State University. After graduating Iowa State in 1896 with a Master of Science Degree, he went on to teach agriculture at Tuskegee Institute. Carver taught for 47 years passing down lessons such as crop rotation and other farmer techniques.

Carver was a prodigy in learning, specifically curious as to the different uses of produce like peanuts, and the invention of new products. His many contributions include glue, the Jesup Wagon, a vehicle to carry agricultural exhibits to town, instant coffee, shaving cream, and 325 uses for peanuts.

George Washington Carver High School for the Sciences in particular was established after the closing of Springfield High School by the NYC school board in 2007. Springfield High School became an educational campus housing George Washington Carver, as well as Excelsior Preparatory High School, and Queens Preparatory Academy. G.W.C. High School is most known for maintaining Springfield’s veterinary program.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) took up multiple pursuits in his life including writing, inventing, and representing the U.S. in the government. As a child and young adult, Franklin did not have access to formal education but independently studied through books, experiences, and relationships.

Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and started off working under his father as a candle maker and then his brother as an anonymous writer. In 1723, he left his family life in Boston and moved back and forth between London and Philadelphia. After 18 months he settled in Philadelphia he supported himself by owning a print house and managing a news publication ‘Pennsylvania's Gazette’. The paper gained the colonies’ favor and became one of the major newspapers competing with brands like The Essex Gazette, The Connecticut Journal, and The New York Gazette.

Franklin retired from the communications and media business in 1748. Leaving him with time to explore other sectors of his life. He began to pour into shaping his country by becoming a part of the conversations in Congress. Spending 28 years as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, concocted the Albany Plan which fought against imposing British taxes, and collaborated to create a draft for the Declaration of Independence. Amongst his political endeavors, he continued his education in research of electricity, eventually inventing the lightning rod in 1752.

Franklin’s love of education was not only harbored in personal studies but manifested in the establishment of a library and school which are now known as the University of Pennsylvania. In 2014, Benjamin Franklin High School For Finance & Information Technology was established by the NYC School board. It specializes in allowing its students to get professional certificates in computer science.

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) was born in Scotland and received higher education at the University of Edinburgh and the University of London. In 1871, he immigrated to Canada and then the U.S. in 1871. Bell’s research centered on speech and sound and the ways it can be manipulated to be more accessible. He was inspired by his mother who was deaf to create the first international phonetic alphabet.

Bell’s experimentation of sound went way beyond the lab. He started to play with vibrations in hobbies and everyday life. He observed how his dog's barking patterns and pitch concerned the throat’s vibration. While practicing piano, he also discovered that you could mimic the chords of a piano in another room by the echo of it, leading him to realize they were being transmitted through the air.

From this observation, he experimented with the ideas of waves and wires coming together to form an invention that could carry sound over differing distances. In 1876 this invention was patented as the telephone. Soon after, in 1876, Bell founded the Bell Company to distribute the communication device to the public.

Although Bell was most famous for the telephone, a way to transport sound, he also participated in the invention of other transportation devices. He developed blueprints of airplanes, kites, and watercrafts. Bell's Silver Dart successfully flew a half mile in 1909 and his HD-4 was the fastest watercraft in the world. In 1888, Bell and his son-in-law invested their work into National Geography, an up-and-coming journal which bloomed into a well renowned science entity.

P.S. 205Q Alexander Graham Bell School was established in 1954.

Marie Curie (1867-1934) was a noted scientist and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. Born in Warsaw, Poland, Maria Skolodowska-Curie moved to Paris in 1891 to study at the Sorbonne. Soon after, she joined a research laboratory and in 1898, she and her husband Pierre expanded on Henri Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity, discovering two new elements, Polonium and Radium. This discovery earned Curie her first Nobel Prize, in Physics. She won a second Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911, becoming the first person to earn two such awards. Curie died in France in 1934 from leukemia, thought to be caused by exposure to radiation.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was a marine biologist who worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (later the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) while developing a career as a nature writer. She published her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, in 1941. After the success of her second book, The Sea Around Us, which won the National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal in 1951, she resigned from government service to focus on her writing. Her third book, The Edge of the Sea, was published in 1957. Carson is best remembered for her groundbreaking 1962 book Silent Spring, which examined the detrimental effects of the insecticide DDT on wildlife. Despite opposition from the chemical industry, an investigation was ordered by President John F. Kennedy (1917-1962), and in 1963 Carson testified before Congress. She died of breast cancer the following year. DDT was banned with the passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972.