Personal Care Products

This module can be included as part of the nanotechnology elective unit in middle school science or can be taught in isolation as an introduction to Consumer Science, in particular to give student an awareness for making decisions about nano products in the market place. The focus is on personal care products but could easily be extended to cover other consumer products such as sporting equipment, food, electronic goods, clothing etc.

Module Overview

In this module students will first learn about awareness and how to make informed decisions when it comes to personal care products, including undertaking an activity to learn about product labelling, as well as an experiment to make a cream to learn about ingredients

They will then learn about ‘nano’ products, including both the benefits of nano products, illustrated using an experiment comparing nano and normal sunscreen, as well as issues surrounding safety and informing the public.

• Module Guide Word (88kb)

• Module Presentation Powerpoint (2.4mb)

Activity 1: Reading Labels

To make informed decisions, we have to know what we are buying and what we actually need. In the first activity students create a spreadsheet and collect 10 labels from personal care products and cosmetics and record details of main ingredients. The aim of this is to learn about the common ingredients in products like shampoos, creams, gels, sunscreens.

• Activity Guide Word (60kb)

• Activity Word (52kb)

Experiment 1: Making cream

Students then undertake an experiment where they make a cream, to highlight what are in fact the essential ingredients in products and what we are actually buying.

• Experiment Guide Word (64kb)

• Experiment Word (56kb)

Activity 2: How does sunscreen work?

In the second part of the module students are introduced to some examples of personal care products that contain nanotechnology. To learn about how nanotechnology can change/improve a product, nano sunscreen is used as an example. Students first undertake a research activity to learn about sunscreen and how they work.

• Activity Guide Word (284kb)

• Activity Guide Word (308kb)

Experiment 2: Investigating Nano Sunscreens

Students then undertake an experiment comparing normal sunscreen to nano sunscreen.

• Experiment Guide Word (64kb)

• Experiment Word (64kb)