Using the very small to build science literacy

In the Michael Crichton thriller “Prey,” a cloud of nanoparticles — micro-robots — is accidentally unleashed on an unsuspecting world despite the desperate efforts of a handful of scientists to stop the menacing swarm before it kills.

In the real world of central city schools and science museums, a dozen UW–Madison students, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are unleashing nanotechnology as a powerful tool to enhance science literacy and public understanding of science.

By explaining and exploring the world of nanotechnology, the same atomic-scale technology author Crichton uses to hook millions of readers, UW–Madison students like Greta Zenner and Lauren Sammel are trying to hook students at Milwaukee’s Rufus King High School and visitors to Milwaukee’s Discovery World Museum on science and its societal influence — good and bad.

“It’s exciting to see kids exposed to cutting-edge science,” says Zenner, a graduate student in history of science and a participant in the NSF-supported Internships in Public Science Education (IPSE) program. “To see them think critically about something and run with it suggests we’re having an impact.”

Indeed, in a recent class at the Milwaukee college-preparatory high school, students wrestled with the ethical and societal implications of nanotechnology and health care: Who should control the technology? Who should have access to it? Who should pay for it? And what are the ethical limits that need to be considered before the technology is deployed?

It is possible that the “fulcrum of human destiny may rest on the nanoworld,” says Bill Weber, a veteran science teacher at King who’s opened his classroom to the IPSE program. “This is a look at the future and this project helps give a 14-year-old a voice about something that has implications for the future.”

Access to the nanoworld is made courtesy of UW–Madison’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, which has helped develop tabletop demonstrations of nanotechnology that help illustrate the looming impact of atomic-scale machines and materials.

Nanotechnology, by definition, involves structures and surfaces that are measured in nanometers or billionths of a meter. It involves things that are too small to be seen even by powerful optical microscopes. But the technology is already seeping into everyday use. For example, many cities in the United States are replacing old stoplights with new lights composed of light-emitting diodes, a technology based on nanoscale structures. The new lights are brighter, use less energy and need to be replaced less often than traditional light bulbs.

But nanotechnology also extends to the exotic, with prospects for molecular-sized robots or nanobots that could be used to treat disease by repairing faulty or damaged cells in a patient with a cell-based ailment like heart disease, for instance.

“The reality is that nanotechnology is already affecting our lives and we’re not even cognizant of it,” says Wendy Crone, IPSE’s faculty adviser and a professor of engineering physics. “But it’s also going to affect our lives in ways we haven’t even imagined yet.”