NanoDays

CELEBRATE NANODAYS WITH US
MARCH 27 - APRIL 4, 2010!

NanoDays is our nationwide festival of educational programs about nanoscale science and engineering and its potential impact on the future. NanoDays events are organized by participants in the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), and take place at over 200 science museums, research centers, and universities across the country from Maine to Hawaii.

(If you're not already a part of NISE Net, it's easy to join!)

What could YOU do for NanoDays?

NanoDays activities often bring university researchers together with science museum educators, creating unique learning experiences. NanoDays engages people of all ages in a miniscule world where materials have special properties and new technologies have spectacular promise.

Cornell researcher Sharon Gerbode talks about "squishy science" at Sciencenter in Ithaca, NYMany NanoDays celebrations will combine simple hands-on activities for young people with events exploring current research for adults. One popular activity involves visitors working together to build a giant balloon model of a carbon nanotube. (Real carbon nanotubes, which are 1/50,000th of the width of a human hair, have extraordinary strength and unusual electrical properties that make them useful in electronics and materials science.

Other NanoDays activities demonstrate different, unexpected properties of materials at the nanoscale -- sand that won’t get wet even under water, water that won’t spill from a teacup, and colors that depend upon particle size.

Some NanoDays participants host public forums, discussions about the risks and benefits of particular appllications of nanotechnology. Many participating universities host public tours of their laboratories that work with nanoscale science and technology.

For lots of ideas about what you could do for NanoDays, browse our online catalog.

The 2010 NanoDays kit is now available for download! See a complete list of contents.