Abstract
Science education research has recognized the potential of NanoScience and nanoTechnology (NST) due to its contribution to scientific literacy of future generations. Scholars have identified nine “Big Ideas” as important enough to teach in order to understand NST issues. Based on these “Big Ideas” a teaching learning sequence for lower secondary students has been developed focused on: Size and Scale, Tools and Instrumentation, Size-Dependent Properties and Science-Technology-Society. The teaching sequence was implemented in a class of 15 students of a lower secondary school (8th grade; aged 14-15). Seven meetings took place; each one lasting about ninety minutes. The course was structured as follows: 1. Introduction. 2. How small is a nanometer? 3. How can we “see” the nanoworld? 4. Size-dependent properties: Change of the surface area to volume ratio. 5. Explaining the behavior of different textiles (ranged from hydrophilic to hydrophobic) when absorbing water drops. 6. Explaining color changes in gold nanoparticles. 7. Risk assessment of nanotechnology. Data have been collected by questionnaires, interviews, students’ worksheets and field notes. The results seem to be encouraging for the teaching of NST issues even in lower levels of education.
Highlights
The rapid development and growing societal importance of NanoScience and Nanotechnology (NST) have evoked educational concerns throughout the world
Recognizing the important role of NST in science and society the US National Science Foundation (NSF) funded a series of workshops in order to work out basic teaching ideas of the nanoscience field
By carrying out the activities of the 2nd session they noticed that for handling objects they need tools that their dimensions are proportional to the size of the objects they want to handle. They realize that the observation of nanoscale objects requires special tools, which work utilizing a different type of interaction than the optical microscope, because the particles are smaller than the wavelength of light
Summary
The rapid development and growing societal importance of NanoScience and Nanotechnology (NST) have evoked educational concerns throughout the world. In the past two decades a growing body of science education research has been carried out concerning NST issues (Hingant & Albe 2010, Jones et al 2013). Nine “big ideas” have been identified as important enough to teach in order to understand NST issues: Size and Scale, Structure of Matter, Forces and Interactions, Quantum Effects, Size-Dependent Properties, Self-Assembly, Tools and Instrumentation, Models and Simulations, Science, Technology and Society (Stevens, Sutherland & Krajcik 2009). Swarat et al (2011) in a series of studies, aimed at exploring students’ conceptions about size and scale in the context of undergraduate nanoscience and engineering courses, identified four major categories: fragmented, linear, proportional, and logarithmic. The aim was to record students’ capabilities and difficulties in learning NST issues in real classroom settings
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