For Students K-12

No matter how old or you are, learning about nanotechnology can be fun and exciting. Around the country and the world, we have found new ways to learn about nanotechnology. There are museum exhibits with hands-on experiments and exhibits, and even if you can't get there, you can watch the experiments and visit the museums online. There are magazines with cool stories and games about nanotechnology. Check out the nanotechnology bus that drives around the country and find out when it's coming to your town. There's even a program to learn about nanotechnology by playing with Legos®!

Cornell University's "It's a Nano World" traveling exhibit teaches kids about nanobiotechnology through hands-on activities.

Here you will see that nanotechnology is not just one thing. It is chemistry, physics, biology and materials science at the molecular level. After all, every one of us is made of atoms!

Check out these links to learn more about the fun and interesting ways you can learn about nanotechnology. (You may need to install the latest version of Flash to play some of the games.)

Nanooze is an online science magazine created by Cornell University. It has online games, articles, and a blog, and you can view it in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

It’s a nano world, seen in the picture to the right, is a rentable, traveling interactive museum exhibition that introduces 5-8-year-old children and their families to the biological wonders of the nano world. The exhibit is managed by Cornell University’s Sciencenter, and there are some materials, activities, photos, and book lists on the website.

The strange new world of nanotechnology is an absorbing and lively 17-minute video introduction to nanotechnology made at Cambridge University. It has wonderful real pictures of nanoscale materials so tiny they can’t be seen by a regular optical microscope.

How Small is Nanotechnology? offers an interactive, multimedia approach to learning about the nanoscale. It is part of the NanoZone website run by the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

NanoDays take place for a week each year on the same days at over 200 science museums and other locations across the country from Puerto Rico to Hawaii. It teaches about the nanoscale in ingenious ways to people of all ages. In 2012, NanoDays will happen from March 24 through April 1. Check back with the website every so often to find out if your community is participating this year.

The VizLab image collection on the NISE Net educational website has amazing photos of the nanoscale, some with artists’ enhancements.

Howard Univeristy's mobile nanoscience laboratory, the NanoExpress.

The NanoExpress trailer designed and staffed by Howard University takes nanoscience to towns all over America with its “mobile science theme park.”

Nanotechnology: Small Science, Big Deal is an exhibit at the London Science Museum, with a lot of online information, too, and some fun stuff, like a game called Duckboy in Nanoland!

The Incredible Shrunken Kids is a cool nanotechnology article in Science News for Kids, which is an award-winning weekly science newsmagazine and website that has fantastic stories spanning all fields of science.

Exploring the Nanoworld with Lego® Bricks has web-based materials from the University of Wisconsin that show how some physical and chemical principles related to nanotechnology can be demonstrated with LEGO® models.

Dragonfly TV’s Nanosphere is the nanotechnology part of a multimedia science education program that combines television, community outreach, print materials, science kits, and web-based information and activities.

Boston’s Museum of Science Nanotechnology webpage offers podcasts, cable TV news stories, presentation videos, and calendars of live activities. The museum helped to launch the annual nationwide nanotechnology event called NanoDays.