Lasers in Action, Science in Action at Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada

Lasers in Action

Host Organization: Simon Fraser University

Event Date: many throughout 2010

Event Description: This outreach program is targeted at classes of grade-8 students, who come to Simon Fraser University for 1.5 hour workshops devoted to light and lasers. After a short introductory lecture (complete with cool demonstrations!) the students rotate through four different workstations, to gain hands-on experience and explore topics such as the spectrum of light, refraction & reflection, and total internal reflection and waveguides. Each workstation involved the students exploring a series of activities. One in particular involved an "optical maze"., in which students needed to use refraction and/or reflection to guide laser light to a target. Thus far, we have reached approximately 500 students. The program will continue in fall 2010.

video to appear on YouTube in late August

see also http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/news/beaming-in-on-lasers.shtml for a news story.

Departmental outreach site lists information about the workshops for interested parties: http://physics.sfu.ca/about/outreach