The Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute at UI
Environmental and Health Aspects
Environmental and Health Aspects
Education
The overall goal of the education and outreach component of the NNI@UI is to initiate, implementation and institutionalization 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:
- To continue to contribute to the development of a recently opened gallery at The Museum of Natural History at the University of Iowa entitled, The Biosphere Discovery Hub: Iowa's Gateway to our Global Environment. This exhibit represents a venue for the presentation of research vignettes designed to introduce museum visitors to research at the University of Iowa (UI) including research in the areas of nanoscience relevent to our global environment.
- To create and maintain a “Nano-to-go” resource library 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 science and engineering.
- To incorporate appropriate aspects of nanoscience and engineering into all levels of the graduate and undergraduate curriculum using best practices pedagogical methods.