Nanoscience Casey Moore 7th Grade Life Science Gunston Middle School Arlington, Virginia

In my classroom Virginia SOLs for 7th grade include metric conversions from kilo- to milli-. My students were curious about what was smaller than a millimeter. They had never used microscopes, nor did they know there were organisms smaller than a millimeter. Many students didn’t know what cells were.

In my classroom My students determined that the smallest thing they had seen in class was a newly hatched brine shrimp. They measured the brine shrimp using a transparent millimeter ruler under the microscope. A newly hatched brine shrimp is about 1mm.

Searching for brine shrimp

Viewing the brine shrimp under 100X magnification

Students use a millimeter ruler to determine the size of the brine shrimp

Document camera helps to teach measurement in the microscope

The shrimp swims by and we can measure the length

King Henry died by drinking chocolate milk kilo hecto deka (base) deci centi milli Each letter represents a decimal place when converting between prefixes. 7th grade metric conversion

“What’s smaller?” My students wanted to know what was smaller than milli, so we wikipedia-ed it: Extension: converting between milli-, micro-, nano- m.. u.. n

Working with scale Students know that a brine shrimp is 1mm Convert 1 millimeter to nanometers 1mm = _____nm m..... n move the decimal point 6 places to the right 1mm = nm

Working with scale Students also learn how to measure the field of view of a compound microscope. In a lab they discover that they can see.1mm in a field of view using 400X. This means that they are able to see nm across. The smallest objects they see with this objective lens is microorganisms from a pond. These microorganisms measure approximately.01mm. This means that my students have seen living things equal to nm

Assignment Goal: To give students an idea of how small a nanometer is. Objective: To create a scale model that represents a nanometer in comparison to unicellular organisms students observe and measure using a compound microscope.

1. What is the diameter of the smallest organisms you saw in the mini-pond? . 01mm

2. How many nanometers are in.01mm?.01mm = _____________nm.01mm = nm

3. Write a ratio that shows that a 100 meter field represents the smallest microorganism you can see with a 400X microscope (scale) in nanometers nm : 100m

4. Write a proportion to find how much of the 100 meter field would represent one nanometer nm = 1nm 100m X

5. Solve the proportion. How much of the 100 meter field represents one nanometer? X =.01m 6. Convert this number to centimeters..01m = 1 cm Convert this number to millimeters. 1cm = 10mm

1.How many fields would the brine shrimp cover at the same scale? (assuming a brine shrimp is 1mm) (100m=.01mm).01mm = 1mm 100m x x = meters = 100 fields!

Websites that show scale Utah Genetics Cells Alive Brainpop!Brainpop!(keyword nanoscience)