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National Nanotechnology Day is an annual event featuring community-led events and activities on or around October 9 to help raise awareness of nanotechnology, its use in products that enrich our daily lives, and the challenges and opportunities for the future. This date, 10/9, pays homage to the nanometer scale, 10 –9 meters.
The theme for this year's National Nanotechnology Day is “Enabling the Nanotechnology Revolution.” This phrase is inspired by the vision statement for the NNI which is to enable “a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to ongoing revolutions in technology and industry that benefit society.” This year we are celebrating nanotechnology’s achievements over the past 20 years, as well as looking forward to how the NNI can continue to best support critical and emerging technologies of the future.
This year, the celebrations of National Nanotechnology Day will start on Friday, Oct. 6. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) will produce a coordinated discussion from the OSTP Twitter/X account highlighting nanotechnology’s impact on our world, recent discoveries about materials at the nanoscale, and what nanotechnologies will enable in the future. Join this Twitter/X thread, and share your thoughts on nanotechnology!
The following week, on Oct. 10, the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office will hold NND’s anchor event: a one-day symposium titled Enabling the Nanotechnology Revolution: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, which will be held at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC. You can register to join this featured event here.
Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will hold a symposium on Oct. 11 on the continuous manufacturing of nanomaterials. This event will be hosted by FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and will be streamed via Adobe as well as several other platforms (such as YouTube) to the public for free. People need to register here to attend the event.
Whether at home, at school, outside, or in a science museum, there are many ways to explore advances in nanotechnology and how it is impacting our everyday lives! Planning for various events and activities is underway at schools, universities, and various organizations around the country.
Here are a few suggested activities around this year's theme:
- Host image, video, or illustration contests that highlight nanotechnology advances or the impact of nanotechnology on society over the past 20 years.
- Host a Science Café or an informal discussion on nanotechnology in your town. If you are a K–12 student or teacher, you could invite a scientist from a local college or university. Email Patrice Pages (ppages@nnco.nano.gov) to learn more.
- Organize lab tours and open houses.
- Coordinate outreach events with demonstrations about nanotechnology. Check out some resources here.
- Create and share an image, video, illustration, or infographic about nanotechnology: what it is, why it is important, and examples of nanotechnology applications.
- Sign up for free remote sessions to see nature at the nanoscale using nanotechnology tools, such as a scanning electron microscope. With the assistance of an experienced engineer, you can control these tools over the Internet in real time!
Imagine nanotechnology’s role in enabling ongoing revolutions in technology and industry that benefit society:
- Play the Nano around the World card game, from the National Informal STEM Education (NISE) Network, and reflect on the potential uses of nanotechnology across the globe.
- Discover how nanotechnology is already improving your life using a scavenger hunt. This scavenger hunt for kids, organized by the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor at Georgia Tech, highlights some examples of household nanotechnology-enabled products. Post on social media about nanotechnology-enabled products that you find in your home!
- Watch this Wired video, in which nanotechnology researcher George Tulevski, from IBM Research, explain what nanotechnology is and how it’s applied to make high-performance electronics and more efficient batteries to five different people; a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert.
- For the past 20 years, so many nanomaterials have been characterized and investigated: two-dimensional materials, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, nanocellulose, and many more. Learn about any of these materials online, and let us know what you find out on social media (with #NationalNanoDay)!
- Curious about a nanotechnology-enabled product you’ve seen in a movie, TV show, cartoon, or comic book? Post about it on social media (and use #NationalNanoDay), and we’ll try to figure out if it could actually work in the real world. What did you think was appealing about these products?
- Learn about the many ways nanotechnology is helping us to address climate change, for example by watching this video produced by NNCO for K–12 teachers in April 2023: Confronting Climate Change with Nanotechnology: Solutions-Based Learning – NanoEd Quarterly Forum.
- Watch this short video (from PBS NewsHour) on the critical role of lipid nanoparticles in mRNA vaccines that protect us against COVID-19; what other diseases could be addressed with lipid nanoparticle vaccines? Let us know on social media (and use #NationalNanoDay)!
- How do you think nanotechnology will improve our lives in the future?
Try these fun activities:
- 100-Billion Nanometer Dash: Run #100BillionNanometers (100 meters) and share your pictures and videos on social media with #NationalNanoDay! Print a Certificate of Achievement and a Gold Medal for you or anyone who runs with you.
- Sizing up Nano: How do you explain what a nanometer is? Or what a nanoparticle or a nanodevice look like? We welcome your thoughts! Send us your explanations, pictures, and videos to nnd@nnco.nano.gov, or send a Tweet by using #NationalNanoDay!
If you have other ideas for activities in celebration of National Nanotechnology Day, we’d love to share them. Please let us know at: nnd@nnco.nano.gov. Also, if you have questions about National Nanotechnology Day, please feel free to contact us at: nnd@nnco.nano.gov.
Information about previous National Nanotechnology Days:
