The June/July 2015 issue of the Nano Bite (newsletter from the Nanoscale Information Science Education Network [NISENet]) notes the successes enjoyed by the organization over the last 10 years,
Even as our ten years of funding from the National Science Foundation comes to an end, the NISE Net’s capacity to reach the public is at its peak! The numbers in our year-10 annual report show a total of 598 organizations that regularly participate in NISE Net activities, of which 352 are museums or other kinds of informal science education groups, 203 are groups from universities, and 43 are a variety of other kinds of organizations.
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Over 1600 NanoDays kits have been distributed throughout the country and partners report using them for all kinds of programming all during the year, not just for NanoDays. Nearly 200 mini-grants have allowed partners to adapt and incorporate nano educational activities into ongoing programs, to use them to bring nano education to underserved and under-represented audiences, and to build new partnerships around nano education and outreach. Soon a total of 93 Nano mini-exhibitions will have been deployed across the U.S., some stationary and some shared at a total of 149 organizations. And with the full deployment of mini-exhibitions, NISE Net educational resources reach over 10 million members of the public each year!!!
NISENet has also organized a number of spin-off projects (from the newsletter),
We have been talking with a variety of folks about this and a few spin-off projects are already underway. The most closely connected spin-off is being made possible by a supplement to our NISE Net award from NSF that will allow us to develop kit of materials to support the expansion and/or development of new Museum and Community Partnerships to reach underserved audiences. Another spin-off is the Building with Biology project that focuses on public engagement through conversations and activities about synthetic biology, and will also entail the development of a kit. Also underway is the Sustainability in Science Museums project, aimed at engaging the public in sustainability through the educational power of science centers and museums, also to include a kit of activities and programs
This issue’s Nano Haiku,
Submitted by Luke Donforth, Physics Department, University of Vermont
Nanoscale pipes slow
quantum superfluid flow
to pressure that’s low.
You can find the full June/July 2015 issue of The Nano Bite here.