1 Title	Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science (MRSEC)
2 Website	http://www.mrsec.psu.edu/
3 Description	The Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science is a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center funded by the National Science Foundation. The Center supports collaborative, interdisciplinary research efforts in the area of nanoscale materials. The research themes of the Center are focused broadly on molecular nanofabrication, complex inorganic materials, and low-dimensional electronic nanostructures. These research themes are integrated with major efforts in educational and industrial outreach. The activities of the Center involve over fifty students and postdoctoral fellows, an approximately equal number of faculty from eight academic departments at the Penn State University Park Campus and Hershey Medical Center, and a number of external academic and industrial partners. Working together, the MRSEC and the Franklin Institute have produced the Materials Matter museum show, a 60 minute cart-based interactive exploration into the "micro" mechanisms behind the unusual and surprising "macro" behavior of materials such as aerogels, shape-memory alloys, polymers, electronic ink, and zeolites. We've distributed 22 copies of this show to science museums nationwide. Procedures are downloadable in word document and .pdf format. http://www.mrsec.psu.edu/museum/materials/index.asp
4 Comments	Nuggets http://www.mrsec.psu.edu/nuggets/ Classroom Demos http://www.mrsec.psu.edu/education/teachers/available_demos.asp Teacher mini-grants http://www.mrsec.psu.edu/education/minigrant.asp Materials Matter (Activities) http://www.mrsec.psu.edu/museum/materials/index.asp
5 Date	1/3/06
6 Reviewer	Eric Brutke (John M. Rusin 1/5/06)