We are currently entering our fifth year of team teaching an interdisciplinary undergraduate course in nanotechnology and nanomaterials that bridges physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. This course has brought the excitement of nanomaterials and nanotechnology to engineering and science majors and has made them aware of the many opportunities that are open to them for research in the nanosciences. Through a recent award from NSF, we have begun development on new studio laboratories that will expose students to optical, scanning probe and electron microscopies, bottom-up versus top-down approaches to materials fabrication, and fundamental properties of nanomaterials with key emphases on semiconductor quantum dots and inorganic-organic nanocomposites. Our new nanoscience laboratories and other innovative course materials including syllabus and web module information will be discussed along with successes with oral and written assignments and invited speakers. This course is integral to a new nanotechnology minor at Union College and is part of our college-wide initiative entitled Converging Technologies that has cultivated a cohort of students with the background to undertake internships, summer research projects and senior theses with emphases in nanotechnology. A central success of the course has been the strengthening of partnerships with local industrial and academic institutions in New York's Tech Valley, including IBM, General Electric GRC, Evident Tech, RPI and Albany NanoTech.

Submitted as an invited talk for the Northeast Regional Meeting (NERM2006) of the American Chemical Society at SUNY Binghamton.