SPIE awards $90,000 annually to organizations with optics and photonics related education outreach projects.
Application deadlines are: 31 January (Cycle 1) and 31 May (Cycle 2).
Thirty (30) education outreach applications were awarded this year. Amounts were allocated on a sliding scale and some proposals received partial funding. Applications are judged on their potential to impact students and increase optics and photonics awareness.
- Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications (China) - to hold an optics and photonics exhibition at BUPT.
- BP Poddar Institute of Management and Technology (India) - to conduct workshops to make handmade electronic appliances for daily uses to participating village students.
- California State University (USA)- to raise appreciation and understanding of physics among kids attending area schools through the Physics Outreach Program (POP).
- Cameroon SPIE Chapter (Cameroon) - to conduct optics and photonics outreach activities.
- Centro de Investigaciones, AC (Mexico) - to continue optics workshops at public schools targeting young children.
- Georgia Institute of Technology (USA)- to conduct the "Day of Light" workshop series for students and teachers.
- Go Like the Wind Montessori School (USA) - to use greenhouse and solar cell technology to teach students about optics and photonics, to spark an interest and excitement in the connection of light technology and botany.
- Lakeville Area Public Schools (USA) - to perform the "Fun in the Sun" activity which will be presented by high school and elementary students.
- Manylabs (USA) - to enhance current "Grow Your Own Lens" workshop
- Mineola High School (USA) - to offer STEM fair to elementary classes.
- Northeastern University (USA) - to develop new outreach events to impact K-12 students & increase awareness and interest in optics and photonics.
- Norwalk High School (USA) - to present STEM optics & photonics demonstrations for the general public at annual kids fair.
- NUI Galway SPIE Chapter (Ireland) - for physics outreach to secondary school students.
- Optics Students Karlsruhe (OSKar) Chapter (Germany) - to conduct a series of public science "Photonics Beyond the Visibile" demonstrations.
- Our Lady of Lourdes Regional School(USA) - to provide a series of introductory optics sessions for students in the classroom.
- Saint Francis University (USA) - to build a Raman spectrometer for use in the Saint Francis Univ Rural Outreach Chemistry for Kids (ROCK).
- St. Petersburg State Univ of Aerospace Instrumentation (Russian Federation) - to organize conference on the development of distance optic connection between micro-satellites groups.
- Taras Shevchenko Nat'l Univ Kyiv Chapter (Ukraine) - outreach activities to include 1) Autumn school in optics and applied physics; 2) Junior research papers competition "Optics and laser physics"; 3) Optical games.
The University of Arizona (USA) - for a week-long optics summer camp for middle school Native American students.
- The University of Western Australia (Australia) - to present optics and photonics to the community by selectively targeting trends and interests of individual demographics by 1) A series of public lectures on light applications, 2) Hands-on optics workshops for high-school students, 3) DIY optics projects for university students.
- Univ Miguel Hernández (Spain) - to train university students and high school teachers through hands-on experiments using Optics kits and games.
- Univ Nacional Autónoma de México Chapter (Mexico) - outreach activities to include workshops to build optics related toys, experimental demonstrations and the perfomance about the duality of light.
University of Oulu (Finland) - to present light-based lectures and demos, presentations during science days for parents and students.
- University of Rome, La Sapienza Chapter (Italy) - for an outreach exhibit at the Maker Faire in Rome.
- University of Saint Andrews (United Kingdom) - to perform hands-on experiments for young children to actively engage with phenomena they can understand.
- University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) - to develop a not-for-profit workshop to increase exposure to the optical sciences to students in Africa.
- Università degli studi di Napoli Federico Ii (Italy) - for a 4-day event to spread optics & photonics knowledge through simple experiments in Napoli.
- University of Latvia (Latvia) - to perform hands-on workshops for participants of all ages and various at a summer school and during the European researchers' event.
- University of Otago (New Zealand) - for outreach visits to schools in rural areas and demonstrate a range of optics related concepts to children aged 9-13.
- Vanderbilt University SPIE Chapter (USA) - to add hands-on activities to existing Optics Day event.
