Sustainable Nano Blog
NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology

Outreach Materials

Students, faculty, and staff in the CSN developed numerous outreach materials over the history of the center. Click on the thumbnails below to access each resource.

 

Published articles about educational activities

Image showing a Monopoly-like game board, cards, and game tokensNanopoly: An Interactive Board Game and Reading Activity for Enhancing Nanotechnology Curriculum in Higher Education
Christopher Castillo*, Marena C. Rivera-Dopazo, Miriam O.P. Krause, Korin E. Wheeler, and Juan Pablo Giraldo.* Journal of Chemical Education 2026, 103, 1, 318-325
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c00894

 

illustration of a person with dark hair and safety goggles surrounded by glowing blue light

NanoAdventure: Development of a Text-Based Adventure Game in English, Spanish, and Chinese for Communicating about Nanotechnology and the Nanoscale
Natalie V. Hudson-Smith*, Wilanyi Alvarez-Reyes, Xiaoxiao Yao, Jiayi He, Rebeca Sarahi Rodriguez, Stephanie Mitchell, Mahmoud Matar Abed, Eleni Spanolios, Miriam O. P. Krause, and Christy L. Haynes. Journal of Chemical Education 2023, 100, 6, 2269-2280
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00042

 

 

 

drawing of model TEM made of PVC pipe and the blue sunprint images of items exposed to the UV light in the model

 

A Macroscale Model for Hands-On Activities Demonstrating Transmission Electron Microscopy
Natalie V. Hudson-Smith, Meghan S. Cahill, Nathan D. Klein, Miriam O.P. Krause, and Christy L. Haynes.* Journal of Chemical Education 2019, 96, 7, 1377-1382
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b01059

 

 

two vials of bright blue glowing liquid

Carbon Dots: A Modular Activity To Teach Fluorescence and Nanotechnology at Multiple Levels
Susan N. Pham, Joshua E. Kuether, Miranda J. Gallagher, Rodrigo Tapia Hernandez, Denise N. Williams, Bo Zhi, Arielle C. Mensch, Robert J. Hamers, Zeev Rosenzweig, Howard Fairbrother, Miriam O.P. Krause, Z. Vivian Feng*, and Christy L. Haynes.* Journal of Chemical Education 2017, 94, 8, 1143-1149
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00995

 

 

Nano at Home

When many schools, museums, and science festivals were inaccessible during 2020-2021 due to COVID-19, members of the CSN developed activities designed to help families do science at home! These experiments and demonstrations can be done at home with common or easily-acquired ingredients. (also listed on this page)

photo of a purple cabbage and five small cups of water, each with a different color ranging from red to blue to green

 

How to make pH paper with cabbage

 

 

 

a snowflake-shaped chocolate with iridescent color highlights

 

 

Chocolate experiment

 

 

photo of a strip of paper with a rainbow of colors on it

 

 

Chromatography

 

 

 

array of plastic cups with green liquid in them

 

 

Color Analysis

 

 

 

photo of gloved hand doing "thumbs up" with a notebook and kitchen ingredients in the background

 

Thermodynamics

 

 

 

 

two glasses with eggs floating in liquid

 

Passive transport

 

 

 

 

photo of a marshmallow with a raised star on the surface, in front of a piece of aluminum with the same star shape cut out of the center

 

S’mores Lithography

 

 

 

 

Other resources

Demonstration ideas for classrooms, workshops, and outreach activities

 

Handbook of 16 nano-related demonstrations designed for K-12 students.

 

 

 

animation of a little purple lithium molecule tossing away Li+ ions

 

Lifeology courses coming soon