NanoSense: The Basic Sense behind NanoScience

Sri International, Menlo Park CA

Investigators

Abstract

Working closely with chemists, physicists, educators and nanoscientists, SRI generates NanoSense -- nanoscience activities that build on their ChemSense activities. That curricular framework is extended to include five or six nanosense activities -- created, classroom tested and disseminated -- to help high school students understand the underlying principles, applications and implications of nanoscale science. These units help students visualize physical, chemical and biological principles that govern the behavior of particles at nanoscales. Some of the activities are simple, one-day enrichment activities, while others span several class periods. The work introduces an interdisciplinary element into the disjoint high school curriculum and provides real world examples of science and technology in action. Research along with the development determines how students improve their understanding of nanoscience concepts and technological applications improve over time and how teachers use these tools and activities to support student discourse and understanding. An invitational workshop of science educators and researchers and nanoscience researchers is to identify and prioritize a coherent set of concepts and potential ideas that underlie an understanding of the scale continuum between nanoscale and macroscale on which instructional materials research and certificate programs can be built.