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What would it be like to be the size of a water molecule? How is the world of the really, really small different from our human-scale world? Nanoscience is the study of things the size of a few nanometers (a few millionths of a millimeter), such as proteins, DNA, and other small chunks of stuff.
I will give a brief overview of the fascinating properties of the nanoscale and what makes this scale different—it's a sticky, shaky, and bumpy world. It's sticky because all objects tend to stick together due to various types of bonding. It's shaky because thermal energy makes everything jiggle, shake, and knock into one another. And it's bumpy rather than smooth because matter is made of small indivisible chunks. These very simple concepts can help introduce the wonderful world of the very small to students of any age.
I will also give a very basic overview of some of the fantastic things happening in nanoscale research: microscopes that can image atoms, discovery of carbon rods hundreds of times stronger than steel, and development of materials that grow themselves.
Presenter(s): Michael R. Falvo (Research Associate Professor, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Bio: Dr. Michael R. Falvo is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and his MS and PhD degrees in physics from UNC-Chapel Hill. His research interests include the study of nanoscale mechanical and electronic phenomena in systems ranging from engineered electromechanical devices to biological systems such as viruses, DNA, and cilia. His current work focuses primarily on the area of nanoscale biophysics; he is currently studying the mechanical properties of the protein fibrin, which makes up the fibers that form blood clots.
Falvo has also been very active in outreach and education efforts aimed at introducing nanoscience and nanotechnology concepts to middle school, high school, and undergraduate students. He has received awards for his teaching at UNC and currently teaches a first-year seminar on the topic of nanoscience. He has also co-authored a workbook on nanoscience for middle and high school teachers.
FORMAT: Featured Speaker
SUBJECT: General Science
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary
CONFERENCE STRAND: Fearlessly Teaching Physical Science in the Elementary Classroom
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