For Immediate Release

Date: Saturday, May 14, 2011
Contact: Lynda LeVan, Director of External Affairs
Phone: (423) 648-6043
Email: lhl@cdmfun.org

Celebrate NanoDays™ 2011 at Creative Discovery Museum

(March 7, 2011) – Creative Discovery Museum will be the center of activity for all things tiny on Saturday, May 14 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Guests will discover how big the small world around them truly is as they examine the materials, forces, products, and tools used to explore the atomic universe. Museum staff will be joined by scientists from eSpin Technologies, a Chattanooga company producing products using nanoscale science and technology, and Frank Jones, Phd, PE, the Chemical Engineering Program Coordinator from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

NanoDays at Creative Discovery Museum is part of a nationwide festival of educational programs about nanoscale science and engineering.

NanoDays celebrations bring university researchers together with science educators to create unique new learning experiences for both children and adults to explore the miniscule world of atoms, molecules, and nanoscale forces. A range of exciting NanoDays programs demonstrate the special and unexpected properties found at the nanoscale, examine tools used by nanoscientists, showcase nano materials with spectacular promise, and invite discussion of technology and society.

The local community can experience many of these activities firsthand. Visitors to Creative Discovery Museum will investigate super thin materials used in solar cell technology, forces stronger than gravity, and sand that doesn’t get wet—even under water! Other activities include using your nose as a nanodetector and measuring yourself in nanometers. Plus, guests to the Museum will learn how static electricity is affected by particle size and experiment with Nano sand, Nano plants, and sunblock. Children will also get to take home a magnet which illustrates how nanoscale microscopes work and use tools of different sizes to complete a building project.

NanoDays is organized by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), and takes place nationally from March 26 through April 3, 2011. This community-based event is the largest public outreach effort in nanoscale informal science education and involves science museums, research centers, and universities from Puerto Rico to Alaska.

NanoDays at Creative Discovery Museum is free with paid admission to the Museum.

More about Nano and NISE Network
Many scientists and engineers believe that advances in nanotechnology have the potential to bolster the U.S. economy through innovations providing clean, secure, affordable energy, techniques to clean up hazardous chemicals in the environment, and medical devices and drugs to detect and treat diseases more effectively and with fewer side effects. Despite this promise, the public knows little about research and development being carried out today by 25 departments and agencies of the federal government and by universities and corporations in their own communities.

Originally launched by the Museum of Science in Boston, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and San Francisco's Exploratorium, the NISE Network is now led by 14 museums and universities across the nation. In 2005, an initial grant funded formation of NISE Network to collaboratively develop and distribute innovative approaches to engaging Americans in nanoscale science and engineering. The NISE Network has won its second five-year $21 million grant from the National Science Foundation allowing partners to continue the work of the NISE Net into the next decade.

Through activities like NanoDays, the NISE Network is actively building partnerships between science museums and research centers to increase their capacity to engage the public in learning about nanoscale science and engineering. In addition to the individual museums and research centers, two major professional organizations–the Materials Research Society and the Association of Science-Technology Centers—support the NISE Network and annual NanoDays activities.

For more information about NISE Net or to download a digital NanoDays kit please visit http://www.nisenet.org/nanodays.

For more information about Nano please visit http://www.whatisnano.org This project is based on work supported by the NSF under Award Numbers ESI-05322536 and 0940143. NanoDays™ is trademarked by North Carolina State University and used by NISE Net with permission.

About Creative Discovery Museum
Creative Discovery Museum is open Mon-Sat: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sun: noon-5 p.m. 321 Chestnut Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402. Creative Discovery Museum is recognized as one of the top children’s museums in the nation. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to educational enrichment for children age’s 4-months to 12-years-old through interactive, hands-on experiences that foster creative and critical thinking. Creative Discovery Museum focuses on a broad range of areas encompassed by Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Technology and the Sciences. In addition to its exhibits, Creative Discovery Museum provides local residents and visitors with special events, educational programming, teacher resources for the classroom, field trips, after school programming, early childhood education classes, artist residencies, camps, art lessons, science demonstrations, and a branch of the local library. Creative Discovery Museum is a funded agency of Allied Arts and Tennessee Arts Commission and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

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