NanoDays is next month, and the NISE Net has a number of training materials that might be useful for those new to presenting nano content to public audiences:
- Margaret Glass and Steve Madewell will be running an online training on a few of the NanoDays kit activities February 17 - 24. Email Margaret at [email protected] if you're interested in attending.
- The Bringing Nano to the Public guidebook for researchers is available for download on nisenet.org.
- We also have a collection of Nano 101 resources here. The collection includes videos, short web articles, presentations for staff, and cart and stage demos.
- The NISE Net's Universal Design guidelines for programs might be helpful for anyone thinking about communicating with public audiences, whether researchers or museum educators.
There are also a number of non-NISE Net resources:
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison MRSEC Interdisciplinary Education Group has some background information on nanotech topics available here and information on some materials science topics, including liquid crystals, here.
- The Museum of Life and Science published a short survival guide for scientists and engineers interested in making effective classroom presentations (1996), that's available online here. Some of those guidelines are probably applicable for informal settings as well as formal settings.
- If you're looking for pretty in-depth information for researchers, the European Commission developed two guides: a Scientist's Survival Kit and a Guide to Successful Communications. You can download both from their website here (scroll down, the guides are on the right).
- Lisa Regalla, Science Editor at Twin Cities Public Television, presented a National Science Teachers Association/National Science Digital Library web seminar in November 2009 called Knowing Nano. The webinar has been archived and is available for free here.
(And thank you to Greta Zenner Petersen for helping me find these resources!)
A NanoDays volunteer at the Museum of Science, Boston.