My friend Monique has stepped forward to lead the group in their research project this year. The team met in her home (most meetings are at my place) and gathered around her dining room table to share what they have already learned about nanotechnology. It's a big topic and you can tell that the kids are both intrigued and intimidated by it.
They talked about scale, and tried to put a group of pictures in order from largest to smallest. The pictures included things like single molecules of DNA or carbon, and light waves at various frequencies.
Next Monique brought out a set of test tubes, a pitcher of water, and blue food colouring. They made a series of mixtures, starting out with pure food colouring and diluting it to one-tenth the previous concentration with each step. It didn't take long to understand that one part per billion is very, very little, so one-billionth of anything must be very, very small.
Finally, they considered a list of products that are already on the market, supposedly using nanotechnology in some way. In many cases it wasn't clear just what technology was being used in each of these products, or just how the product was improved by using nanotechnology. They discussed how "nano" could (potentially, not necessarily) be just a marketing term to make something seem better.
Each team member left the meeting with a couple of areas to look into further.
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