NISE Network Blog

What’s a Mini-Grant?
The NISE Network is making available a limited number of small, one-time awards to support initiatives by NISE Net partners to engage their local audiences in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology topics. Requests can be made for an award up to $3,000 dollars to fund a small project or be put towards a larger endeavor.

Program Overview
The Program Overview gives basic program info as well as examples of applicable projects.

What do 17th-century Japanese literature and a science summer camp in Syracuse, NY have in common? Haiku!

The Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technology (MOST) in Syracuse, New York has been working to incorporate nano content into their ongoing summer camp program. As part of that effort, they’re using the haikus from the Nano Bite newsletter to spark discussions about science content.

Science museums and their audiences often benefit from sub-awards provided by research centers which choose to address the NSF Broader Impact Criterion through partnerships for education outreach.   Therefore, the National Science Board’s current review of this criterion (commonly known as “BIC”) alongside its companion criterion “Intellectual Merit,” is of particular interest to the science museum and entire informal science education community.

As many of you know, NanoDays is the NISE Network's annual festival of educational programs about nanoscale science and engineering and its potential impact on the future. Each Spring, hundreds of NISE Net partners across the country plan and host local NanoDays events (find out who participated in NanoDays 2011 here). We in the NISE Net ask that partners hosting events let us know about their experiences by filling out an online NanoDays report.

Thanks to partners who have filled out their NanoDays 2011 reports!

Research on publications and patent applications filed by both large and small corporations illustrates the trends in commercialization of nanotechnology -- to what extent and in what fields ideas are turning into commercial products.  Jan Youtie of Georgia Tech presented the following slide at a workshop on Nanotechnology, Business, and Anticipatory Governance organized by the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University today.  I thought you might enjoy seeing it.  (Click on the image to see it full size.)

    The demos and banners have been put away; the thank          

    you notes have gone out, the reports filed, and NanoDays    

    2011 is now a pleasant blur receding into the collective  

    archive of organizational events, while you, perhaps,

Many NISE Net partners planned great NanoDays events at their museums or research centers, but a few went a little further afield. For instance, as part of a comprehensive line-up of events for NanoDays, the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at the University of Albany hosted a series of programs at a local mall!

With many (but not all!) NanoDays events now over, it's time to fill out your reports! The report is available at this link). However, if you're not quite ready to fill out the report just yet but want to read through the questions first, you can download the attached pdf version with all the questions and text from the report.

Looking for an icebreaker for the beginning of a science café? Or trivia to use on social media sites to help promote your NanoDays events?