The Wellcome trust has produced a 16 page educational briefing on nanotechnology. Its heartening to see documents of this quality appearing, which balance the pros and cons of nanotech, debunk a few myths and leave plenty of room for students to develop their own ideas. If much of the general public feels confused in the crossfire between the doom mongers and the boosters, it must be an order of magnitude worse for school students.
We have remarked in the past that other attempts at explaining nanotechnologies to young people have wound up being tedious or patronising and sometimes both at once. This one is actually fun, and gives teachers somet worthwhile materials to work with. For those who want more, there is a web site to back up the document, including games, instructions on how to match nanotechnologies with educational curricula.
Of course there will be grumblings that this, coming from one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies, is akin to MacDonalds sponsoring school books on healthy eating, but the Wellcome Trust is at pains to point out that it is an independent charity not connected with the pharma company of (almost) the same name.