NANODAYS
NanoDays is held from the last weekend in March through the first weekend in April and is a nationwide festival of educational programs. These programs feature nanoscale science, engineering, and its potential impact on the future. NanoDays events are taking place at more than 250 science museums, research centers, and universities across the country.
What is Nano Technology?
Nanometer-sized things are very small and often behave differently than larger things do. “Nano” means one-billionth. So, for example, a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. A human hair is approximately 80,000- 100,000 nanometers wide.
Scientists and engineers have formed the interdisciplinary field of nanotechnology by investigating properties and manipulating matter at the nanoscale.
HOW TO OBSERVE #Nanodays
- Play the NanoDays song.
- Host a brown-bag lunch with Dr. Sheldon Cooper, senior theoretical particle physicist or another physicist professor who can explain it in layman’s terms.
- Download the Do-It-Yourself nanoscale science project kit.
- Visit NanoDays on Facebook
- Follow on social media by using #nanodays, or #nise
- 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.)
NANODAYS HISTORY
Participants in the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net) organize NanoDays annually. The first NanoDays was held in North Carolina in 2008 by Dr. Gail Jones, a professor of science education at North Carolina State University. NCSU has the story on Dr. Jones.
