Arizona Optics Industry Association (AOIA) Focus Group Activities on Education
Abstract
The
Arizona Optics Industry Association has a significant amount of
expertise in optics education. The individual members are working
independently and collectively to improve optics education on local
to international levels. This paper is a description of selected
educational activities in the areas of informal science education,
materials development, teacher training, development of
optics-related curricula, and school presentations and
collaborations.
1. Introduction
The
Arizona Optics Industry Association (AOIA) is composed of individual
consultants and companies with significant expertise in optical
science, engineering, manufacturing, and business in general. These
members also have significant experience and expertise in optics
education. This optics education focus group has been active in
promoting projects which have benefit at the local, state, national
and even international levels. Recently, these optics educators have
started a dialog with optics companies, the University of Arizona
(Education, Optical Sciences, Astronomy) faculty, local and state
government agencies, and public and private schools on forming
educational partnerships to promote a greater awareness of optics. As
co-chair of the Education Committee of the AOIA, I would like to
describe some of these individual and collective education efforts of
the Tucson optics community.
2. Individual Efforts and Collaborative Work
Since
the optics cluster is a loose knit collection of members,
collaborative efforts are based on mutual benefit and interest. The
AOIA is still learning the educational strengths of our members and
how we can combine our expertise in a sensible way. Only a few
projects, and at a very modest level have received direct AOIA
sponsorship.
A
number of AOIA members and public and private organizations are now
working together to collaborate in the optics education area. AOIA is
working closely with a variety of community organizations including
the University of Arizona College of Education, Tucson Unified School
District, Pima County Tech Prep Consortium, and the Greater Tucson
Strategic Partnership for Economic Development to find funding for
systemic changes in the educational system that are consistent with
our cluster educational goals. One program of particular interest is
the School to Work Program whose goal is a close partnership between
businesses and schools.
3. Types of Activities
This
paper will describe some of the educational efforts of the Tucson
optics community. Most of these activities have occurred with the
general encouragement and interest of AIOA; a few of the activities
were sponsored by AIOA. These activities give a flavor for the kinds
of creative efforts that can be undertaken by optics clusters
elsewhere or by optics communities in other cities.
The
efforts fall into several categories: informal science education,
materials development, teacher training, development of
optics-related curricula, and school presentations and partnerships.
Each of these categories represent one approach to improving optics
education.
4. Informal Science Education
A
group of optical scientists and engineers have been working with the
Tucson Children's Museum to design and produce a set of optics
demonstrations and hands-on exhibits for the museum. The Tucson
Children's Museum serves families of aged 3-12 children. The
optics exhibit opened in the spring of 1996 and has proven to be
popular.
The
following exhibits are in place and have brief curriculum guides
written by the museum staff: Shadow Room, Parabolic Mirrors, Light
Mixing, Diffraction Grating. Blue Sky-Red Sun, Infrared and Night
Vision Glasses, Ultraviolet Light, Polarizing Filters, Lasers,
Holograms, and Remote Control Video Camera. The success of individual
exhibits still needs to be evaluated, and a few more exhibits are
still in process.
5. Materials Development
A
number of educational materials have been developed. Most notable of
these are:
Night
Spectra Quest: a high quality diffraction grating with sample
spectra of different kinds of lights and instructional materials
developed by Professor Steve Jacobs of the Optical Sciences Center.
A
50 foot long holographic diffraction grating on top of City Hall
which creates a brilliant display visible from the highway. This
project originated and was executed by Dr. Jacobs as well.
A
Macromind Director "movie" on the concept of
scattering, using radar scattering for remote sensing as an
illustrative example. This was developed by the author as a test of
how multimedia applications could be used for teaching optical
concepts.
Optical
experimentation packages for schools were developed by Dr. Mike
Nofziger of the Optical Sciences Center.
6. Teacher Training
We
believe that working with teachers is one of the most important ways
to increase the exposure of students to optics. A Middle School
workshop on optics teaching was held for teachers in the Tucson
Unified School District. This workshop lets the teachers do the same
activities as the students, which was far more useful and fun for
the teachers than talking about the activities. Some of the results
related to middle school education are described in Nofziger (1995)
and Pompea and Nofziger (1995).
The AOIA is planning a course for both pre- and in-service
teachers at the University of Arizona that will highlight the
importance and value of optics technology and help these teachers to
integrate it into their classrooms. The unique aspect of this course
is that it will use local companies and their products as concrete
examples of current technologies. The course will highlight the
scientific and technical activities of these companies and use
teaching modules developed around the company's'
products and their associated technologies. This course is part of a
larger plan proposed by the Arizona Optics Industry Association to
more closely link local businesses, science educators, and students.
The teachers taking this class would visit a number of the
companies and be provided with background resource materials, lesson
plans, and materials kits that can be used in their classrooms. Both
pre-service and experienced teachers would be invited to take this
course, and to attend subsequent follow-on workshops. The curriculum
materials will be pedagogically sound and consistent with the
emerging national science standards, such as those developed by the
National Research Council. Additionally, the modules will be
consistent with the scope and sequence of local science standards.
7. Development of Optics-Related Curricula
One
ongoing project is to collect the best teaching ideas in optics for
use by teachers and curriculum developers. The results will be
published in order to be a valuable reference for teachers of optics
at all levels (Pompea and Stepp, 1995). A similar effort in
astronomy has already been completed and has been found to very
useful by teachers at the secondary and college levels (Pompea,
1994). The astronomy teaching volume also includes a number of
optics teaching ideas.
The
author has been part of several national projects that are
developing pedagogically sound curricula for science education. Some
of these have strong components directly relevant to optics and its
applications in astronomy and remote sensing. Several of these major
projects are:
The
Astronomy Village: a multimedia application developed by the NASA
Classroom of the Future Program which introduces students to the
process of science in a study of astronomical phenomena and
telescopes (Pompea and Blurton, 1995) (More information can be found
at http://www.cotf.edu)
The
Observatorium: a NASA sponsored public outreach web site devoted to
the value of earth and space remote sensing. It has introductory
material for the public, teachers, and students related to optics.
(The web site is at URL http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov)
8. Schools, Presentations and Partnerships
A
number of efforts are underway to introduce optical phenomena to
Tucson schools. Dr. Nofziger from the University of Arizona has given
numerous presentations introducing optics to students. Some of these
demonstrations use laser light show equipment bought by the AIOA for
educational presentations. The response has been extremely favorable
from teachers and students. A number of companies in AIOA are helping
a local high school obtain a telescope for their observatory.
Many
partnering efforts have taken place in our community, and we are
searching for effective ways to set up mentoring programs that
utilize individuals in the optical community as mentors in the
schools. We have had presentations from Sandia National Lab's
SCIAD program, which has been effective in Albuquerque at
integrating scientists and engineers into the schools. We are also
looking at other model programs such as the Astronomical Society of
the Pacific's Project ASTRO to find an appropriate model for
Tucson. Such a program would involve the training of volunteers from
the optical community to work as partners with teachers in the
schools. It might also involve the distribution of optics
experimentation kits so that the volunteers have a set of hands-on
activities to work with. Our experience in this area is that a number
of items must be considered for these kind of partnerships to be
successful and self-sustaining and we are proceeding slowly in
creating an appropriate program.
9. Conclusion
There
are a large number of solid educational efforts currently underway.
Although most of these past and current activities reflect the
individual interests of cluster members, we are moving towards larger
projects that require collaboration among AOIA members.
10. References
Nofziger, M. J., Optics curriculum for middle school
students, Proceedings SPIE: 1995 International Conference
on Education in Optics, Edited by M. J. Soileau, vol. 2525, July
1995.
Pompea,
S. M. and C. Blurton, A Walk through the Astronomy Village,
Mercury, Jan-Feb. 1995.
Pompea,
S. M. and M.J. Nofziger, Resources on optics in middle school
education, Proceedings SPIE: 1995 International Conference
on Education in Optics, Edited by M. J. Soileau, vol. 2525, July
1995.
Pompea, S. M. and L. Stepp, Great Ideas for Teaching
Optics, Proceedings SPIE: 1995 International Conference on
Education in Optics, Edited by M. J. Soileau, vol. 2525, July
1995.
Stephen M. Pompea
Pompea and Associates
1321 East Tenth Street
Tucson, Arizona 85719-5808
Electronic mail: [email protected]
