The 1999 National Science & Technology Week poster carries NSF's outreach theme and title: find out why. The photographic image of a ferrofluid blends art and science in communicating scientific knowledge concretely and beautifully to the general public.

On the reverse side of the folded version of the poster, three hands-on learning activities for children of various ages introduce them to an experiential awareness of ferrofluids, guided by directions to inquire, explore and persist in finding out more about available materials and their properties.

NSTW is gratefully indebted for this poster's image to Felice Frankel, photographer and artist-in-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and her colleague who wrote the accompanying text, George M. Whitesides, National Medal of Science winner and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. Together Frankel and Whitesides produced the widely praised On the Surface of Things, a book of scientific images rendered for public appreciation through photography and text.

Felice Frankel's work can be viewed further at http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/felice/felice.html.