This activity is designed to help students understand the concept of scale and magnification when examining a Blue Morpho butterfly wing. The activity requires the use of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) but images are provided if there is no access to an SEM.
Using the book, Spaghetti and Meatballs for All! by Marilyn Burns students explore surface area and volume by using their knowledge of area, perimeter, and volume. This lays an early foundation for important nanoscale concepts.
The purpose of this lesson is to help students visualize how small a nanometer is by relating the size to the numbers- millions, billions and trillions and then relating those numbers to how small particles of matter are.