Achoo! Pollen Does More than Make Us Sneeze

By Holly Leddy1; NNCI Nano2

1. Shared Materials Instrumentation Facility (SMIF), Duke University, Durham, NC 2. National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

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Teaching Materials

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Abstract

Harness the power of a scanning electron microscope to let students see that pollen is more than just the yellow dust that makes us sneeze sometimes! Students will learn to use scale bars to interpret size on microscope images, thus meeting math as well as science standards. Using that knowledge, students will extract the sizes of pollen grains from scanning electron microscope images, and see the wide range of pollen shapes and sizes.After these class activities, student will collect their own pollen samples and sending them to either the Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network (RTNN) lab or the Remote Access Instrumentation for Nanotechnology (RAIN) network where images will be taken of the samples with a scanning electron microscope.

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Credits

Holly Leddy and the Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network

Sponsored by

Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network NSF # ECCS 1542015

National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure NSF # ECCS 1626183

Cite this work

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

  • Holly Leddy, NNCI Nano (2020), "Achoo! Pollen Does More than Make Us Sneeze," https://nanohub.org/resources/32841.

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Tags

  1. biology
  2. general science
  3. K-12
  4. microscopy
  5. middle school
  6. NNCI Educational Materials
  7. physical science
  8. Remote Access Instrumentation for Nanotechnology (RAIN)
  9. remote instruments
  10. scanning electron microscopy (SEM)