Education and Outreach

The overall goals of the education and outreach component of NNI are to initiate, implement and institutionalize effective means of heightening awareness and knowledge of nanoscience and technology. These efforts span a broad range of student and public audiences and seek to maintain effectiveness by an ongoing process of evaluation, assessment and fine-tuning of the educational materials and activities.

Current initiatives of the institute include:

  • Incorporation of aspects of nanoscience, nanotechnology and nanoengineering into various levels of the graduate and undergraduate curriculum using best practices pedagogical methods.
  • Enabling increased activities related to STEM outreach. A “Nano-to-go” resource library has been developed to support faculty efforts to engage K-12 student groups in nano-related learning activities. These activities are designed to help students, teachers and parental chaperones to develop an understanding of how science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) provide essential tools necessary to develop an understanding of issues in environmental and health sciences and engineering.