SPIE awards $81,000 annually to organizations with optics and photonics related education outreach projects.
Application deadlines are: 31 January (Cycle 1) and 31 May (Cycle 2).
Education Outreach Grant Application Form
Twelve education outreach applications were awarded in Cycle 1 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.
- Bishop Ryan Catholic School (USA) - to purchase classroom kits to use with K-12 students during the "Operation Now You See It, Now You Don't. Why?" program.
- Center for Holographic Arts (USA) - to support Optics Camp and Light Play activities at the HoloCenter on Governors Island.
- Dublin City Univ. (Ireland)- to hold two one-day workshops aimed at engaging high school students into STEM research through the investigation of light.
- Fellowship Christian School (USA) - for high school students to apply their knowledge through a semester long project where they will learn aspects of optics.
- Kopernik Society of Broome County (USA) - for a high profile public event during the solar eclipse planned by the Kopernik Observatory.
- Louisiana State Univ. (USA)- to present the "Shining Light on Pollution" activity to give students experience on how optics and photonics are used in environmental science.
- Southeast Career Technical Academy (USA) - for a districtwide workshop to bring awareness to optics and how light travels through lenses.
- Saint-Petersburg State Univ. of Aerospace Instrumentation SPIE Student Chapter (Russian Federation) - to train young students in optics.
- Tyndall National Institute (Ireland) - to provide low-cost, small-size cardboard microscope kits to students that explain the concepts of microscopy and applications.
- Univ. of Cambridge SPIE Student Chapter (United Kingdom) - to update and expand demonstrations on the use of optics in biomedical imaging at various outreach festivals and events.
- Univ. of Southampton SPIE Student Chapter (United Kingdom) - for the optics and photonics outreach education program, "Lightwave".
- Univ. of Southern California Joint Educational Project (USA) - to offer an optics and photonics curriculum for the Wonderkids STEM program, YSP, an after school workshop for 4th and 5th graders.
