Nano for Elementary and Middle School
Simulation Tools and Activities
Simulation Tools
Crystal Viewer Tool
This tool can be used to create beautiful visualizations of carbon nanostructures such as a bucky ball, graphene sheets, and various types of carbon nanotube. It can create visualizations of many other crystal structures as well. Some of the activities listed below use this simulation tool.
Using nanoHUB to Introduce Elementary and Middle School Students to Models and Simulations
Purdue University (2014)
Instructions for an activity that combines the use of physical models and the Crystal Viewer Simulation tool to make models and simulations of carbon nanostructures including graphene, buckyballs, and carbon nanotubes more accessible to middle school students.
Instructions for making carbon nanostructure models using crystal viewer tool
These are step-by-step instructions for creating simulations of carbon nanostructures like bucky balls, carbon nanotubes and graphene sheets.
CNT Bands
This tool can be used to create visualizations of graphene sheets and carbon nanotubes. It also simulates the band diagrams and band gap energies, which determine which structures are metallic and which are semiconducting, making the conceptual connection between structure and function that is fundamental to materials science. The ability to relate properties to structure makes this simulation tool useful for for design challenges.
Molecular Workbench— An Interface to the Molecular World
The Molecular Workbench software is a free, open-source modeling and authoring program specifically designed for use in science education. Powered by a set of real-time molecular simulation engines that compute and visualize the motion of particles interacting through force fields, in both 2D and 3D, it provides a simulation platform for teaching and learning science through atomic-scale reasoning. Many important concepts in physics, chemistry and biology that are otherwise too abstract to understand can be visualized with dynamical and interactive simulations. You can also find out some existing activities at the MOLO and MOLIT curriculum databases.