Students explore uses of nanotechnology

Bettie W. Weaver Elementary fifth-grade students explored the world of nanostructures on Friday, Sept. 30. University of Virginia professor Dr. Jerry Floro, with several graduate students from the Material Science and Engineering department, led several hands-on demonstrations that explained the different benefits and uses of nanotechnology in everyday life.

“We’re teaching kids about how nano-size things behave differently than regularly-sized things,” Floro said. “They’re going to see demos about how things are stronger when they’re nano, how things are more reactive when they’re nano, how things can be both solid and liquid at the same time when they’re nano – very unusual behavior and all because they’re small.”

The traveling program, which is sponsored by Institute for Nanoscale and Quantum Scientific and Technological Advanced Research known as nanoSTAR, is only offered to a limited number of elementary schools in the state during each college semester. It is part of a larger program that is held on campus in mid-March during the department’s Open House.

Midlothian resident Robin Grosenick attended last year’s open house with her son, Ryan, who is now a high school senior. “It was great fun and I immediately thought of trying to get him [Floro] into our school here to do this program because it’s so educational and hands-on learning material, and it’s fitting perfectly into their curriculum,” she said.

The nine demonstrations covered all types of uses for nanotechnology such as creating energy, making water-resistant material, and developing shock-absorbent material. Floro explained how the slime and oobleck, which is nano-sized corn starch particles, had different reactions based on the speed of impact. “It [oobleck] is a very interesting material, so people are thinking about this, for instance, for a type of shock absorber because it behaves in an unusual fashion that it can solidify under impact, but be nice and jounce under softer impact,” he said. “The blue stuff is a molecule that if you move too fast the bonds can’t break quickly enough.”

To learn more about UVa’s nanoSTAR Institute, click here