This month’s (February 2014) Nano Bite newsletter from NISENet (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) features the latest information about NanoDays 2014 (keep scrolling for the Olympics info.),

→ NanoDays 2014: March 29 – April 6, 2014 – The Biggest Event for the Smallest Science!
2014 will be the 7th year of nation-wide NanoDays events! Whether this is your first NanoDays or you hosted events previously, the NISE Net is thrilled to have you join our week of public educational activities about nanoscale science and technology at science museums and research centers all across the nation. The 2014 NanoDays physical kits have been shipped and educators around the US are excitedly unwrapping their activities and prepping for their upcoming programs. Didn’t receive a physical kit this year? Don’t worry because the NanoDays 2014 digital kit includes all the written resources and activity materials lists to host a NanoDays event.

→ Useful NanoDays Resources

• *Important update* You might have the wrong ammeter in your physical NanoDays 2014 kit! Due to an ordering mix-up, the wrong ammeter may have been included with the Exploring Properties-Electric Squeeze activity [read more].

• NanoDays 2014 digital kit is now available for download. Download all the written materials and activity materials lists that are included in the physical kit.

• Physical kit information. Find out what activities are being included in this year’s physical kits or join an upcoming brown-bag conversation.

• NanoDays 2014 training videos now available

• NanoDays event planning guide. This detailed planning guide will ease your NanoDays planning. Take advantage of the suggested planning calendar, activity ideas and promotional materials to use in advertising your event.

• NISE Net promotional materials, logos, and publicity images, including the NanoDays 2014 Press Release

Nano and society

There’ve been some new additions to the catalogue including this,

→ Nanotechnology & Society Guide

You’ll find on this catalogue item’s home page the following description,

This guide is focused on “three big ideas” that can provide a framework to help museum staff and visitors feel empowered to reflect on the relevance of nanotechnology in their lives through open-ended conversation. The guide considers how new nanotechnologies may affect people and the societies they live in and create. The three big ideas are illustrated with related videos and hands-on activities and further explored through very brief case studies of three nanospecific technologies, providing further examples of conversations that might occur on a museum floor. Finally, the guide explores strategies and tips for engaging visitors in conversations as part of their learning experience.

In fact, if you look at Nanotechnology and Society Guide; A Practical Guide to Engaging Museum Visitors in Conversations (pdf), you will find these particular ideas (they weren’t the ones I was anticipating):

Three Big Ideas in Technology and Society

Values shape how technologies are both developed and adopted
Technologies affect social relationships
Technologies work because they are part of larger systems

Nanotechnology and the Three Big Ideas

Nanosilver socks
Lab-on-a-chip
Mini-drones

I hadn’t anticipated the combination of big picture thinking with very specific applications but I like it as they provide starting points, especially the nanosilver socks, which most people have encountered as ‘socks that don’t smell for a long time’.

Olympics 2014

→ Science and Engineering of 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Athletes don’t just prepare physically and mentally for the Olympic Games, equipment and weather are also major factors in their success or failure. Consider alpine skiing and how nanotechnology is enhancing skier performance and helping them become faster than ever. The video, Stability and Vibration Damping in Alpine Skiing, which is a part of the “Science of Sports” NBC series, describes how engineers are redesigning skis. A University of Nevada, Reno mechanical engineering associate professor discusses how he and his team are using nanocomposite materials to reduce unwanted vibration in high performance skis.

In addition to equipment, snow is an essential part of the winter Olympic Games. Scientists have been studying snow for centuries; how it’s formed and how it reacts. Watch Science of Snow, to learn why contingency efforts of storing snow after two mild winters for use during Sochi’s winter games may not stack up to the real thing.

David Bruggeman in a Feb. 2, 2014 posting on his Pasco Phronesis blog provides a bit more detail about the US network’s, the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) series which is a joint programme with the US National Science Foundation (NSF) providing 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games educational videos that feature science and engineering. Here’s a link to the Science of Ice video.

Getting back to Nano Bite, there’s a lot more in the February 2014 issue which can found here.