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Nano Bite: June 2010

Welcome to the June Nano Bite, the monthly e-newsletter for the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net).
What's new? Nano Exhibits! 
Or perhaps more accurately, macro exhibits on nano topics.  Here's where to find them:
NISE Net Exhibits:
In Arkansas! The full set of NISE Net exhibits are touring the Arkansas Discovery Network right now.  You can find them at the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff, AR now until June 17th.  After that, they'll be at the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in Smackover, AR from July 3rd to October 3rd and at the Texarkana Museums System in Texarkana, AR from October 9 to December.  A full list of the locations can be found here.
In Boston, MA and Portland, OR! Nearly complete sets of the exhibits are also currently on view at the Museum of Science, Boston and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, OR.
 
Other Nano Exhibitions:
 
At the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, CA! Check out nanoZone, a permanent exhibition developed by Lawrence Hall of Science introducing basic nanoscale and state-of-the-art nanotechnology science to an 8 to 14-year-old audience.

At Science North/Science Nord in Sudbury, Ontario and the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, OH!  Get to Science North before October 3, 2010 to see Strange Matter, an exhibit about materials science (a.k.a. the study of stuff) developed by the Ontario Science Center and presented by the Materials Research Society.  Strange Matter is on view at the Great Lakes Science Center from now until January 3, 2011.

At the Sciencenter in Ithaca, NY!  It's a Nano World: Smaller than a Spot on a Ladybug opens next week at the Sciencenter.  Designed for 5 - 8 year olds and their families, the exhibition introduces visitors to the biological wonders of the nano world that's too small to see with just your eyes.  There will be a public opening with special presentations and hands on activities on Saturday and Sunday, June 12 and 13.  The Sciencenter is also touring Too Small to See: Zoom into Nanotechnology, an exhibit for children 8 - 13 and their families.  You can catch Too Small to See next summer at the Discovery Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Both exhibits were developed by the Sciencenter along with Painted Universe, Inc. and Cornell University.
Finally, the NISE Net is in the process of developing a small set of portable tabletop exhibits.  We're hoping to make these available to some of our partners within the next two years. 
 
 
Other News:
  Got Nano Evaluation?
As part of the NISE Net's public impacts summative evaluation, our evaluation team is sifting through everything we've learned about nano education and programming within the Network and beyond.  They'll be examining our 200+ internal evaluation reports (check out many of them here), but they're also looking for evaluation reports from the broader Network that cover some aspect of impacting the public with nano.  They're interested in any evaluations conducted after Oct. 1, 2005.  If you have any evaluation reports covering any portion of nano education with the public during this timeframe, please send them to Juli Goss at the Museum of Science, Boston at [email protected] between now and June 30, 2010.
 
 Hooray for the Web Team!
The nisenet.org development team is revamping some behind-the-scenes portions of our online catalog, so nisenet.org will be down Sunday, June 6th in preparation of a major upgrade.  Some of the biggest changes will be invisible, but you can expect the catalog and public homepages to look different and be easier to use.  
 
   Welcome/Congratulations to Ali, Rashmi, and Christina!
We have three new regional hub leaders in the NISE Net: Ali Stein at the Sciencenter in Ithaca, NY is leading the Northeast hub, Christina Akers is now leading the Midwest hub from the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, and Rashmi Najundaswamy is leading the International hub from the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, CA.  Rashmi and Christina have both involved in the NISE Net in other capacities, and Ali is brand new to the Network and the Sciencenter.  You can find a map of the regions and their contact information at www.nisenet.org/community
 
 
   Nano Jobs!
 
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is hiring a Senior Research and Evaluation Associate.  The person will be designing, executing, and facilitating research and evaluation studies related to exhibits, programs, and museum initiatives and will help lead division efforts.  Some of their time will be spent on the NISE Net evaluation.  More details are available here on the OMSI website.
Nano Haiku
Syllables per line
Times ten to the minus nine:
Nano haiku form.

by Matthew Mattingly, Multimedia Director at the UMass Amherst Center for Educational Software Development.
Questions? Haikus? Contributions to the newsletter? Contact Vrylena Olney at [email protected]