ITHACA, N.Y. -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $1.8 million to Main Street Science, the education program of Cornell University's Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC), the Sciencenter in Ithaca and Painted Universe, a design/fabrication firm in Lansing, N.Y., to explain a tiny world to young minds.

The funding will enable the group to design and fabricate a 3,500-square-foot exhibition, "Too Small to See," that will take museum visitors on a journey through nanoscale science and engineering. Children and adults will be immersed in experiences, images and models representing the structures and processes of nano dimensions, no more than a millionth of a millimeter.

Anna Waldron, director of education for the NSF-funded NBTC and co-founder of Main Street Science, is the project leader. Carl Batt, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Food Science at Cornell, is the co-leader.

The same group of collaborators designed "It's a Nano World," an exhibit for elementary-school children, in 2003. The exhibit recently returned to the Sciencenter from a six-month stay at Innoventions at Epcot Center in Florida.

In its latest collaboration, the group will enable visitors to see how tiny things loom large. Children of all ages will be able to step into the Particle Machine, an interactive model, to see how matter is sorted by density, size and magnetic properties.

Even the youngest visitors will be entertained -- and perhaps learn a little geometry -- by stacking hundreds of lightweight spheres into crystal models. Although the children will be encouraged to invent their own arrangements, they will be surrounded by examples of crystal geometry. There will be chemical-bonding demonstrations and features that explain the basic elements of protein structures.

NBTC, established in January 2000, is highly interdisciplinary and encourages close collaborations of life scientists, physical scientists and engineers. The mission of Main Street Science is to create hands-on science activities for young people.

The Sciencenter has more than 200 exhibits and includes the Carl Sagan Planet Walk through downtown Ithaca.

Painted Universe is an exhibition-development firm founded in 2001 to create art, exhibits and environments for children's museums, science centers and art museums.