A Whole New World: Microscope Art Exhibit Makes Major Community Connections
Under glass displays and in small jars in the Rozsa Art Galleries sits an array of tiny objects: threads of string, a strip of elastic, a dead spider. In the palm of a hand, they may not look like much — but under the lens of a Hitachi TM4000 Plus tabletop scanning electron microscope (SEM), these minuscule objects are the gateway to unseen worlds.
The objects are part of the exhibit “Nanowonder: Images from the Microscopic World.” Open to the public through Nov. 7 at Michigan Tech's Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, “Nanowonder” includes juried microscope photographs of insect wings, hair follicles, textiles, metals, rocks, minerals and other materials, all captured by the Hitachi SEM, which can magnify samples up to 100,000x the naked eye.
The Hitachi SEM is in residency at Tech as part of Hitachi’s Inspire STEM Education Outreach Program, which engages students from kindergarten through graduate-level studies in exploring the microscopic world. In fact, many of the photographs on display were taken during various outreach events at local schools, public libraries and on-campus events.
Learn about the exhibit and the campuswide collaborative effort that made it possible on Michigan Tech's Unscripted Research Blog.