Physics (13) Modern society is increasingly reliant on technologies developed from the optical sciences. In order to sustain growth in these fields, there is a need for people with technical skills in this area and for professionals with knowledge of basic optical phenomena. To address these societal needs, the goal of this project is to improve the Optics education that students receive throughout the Physics curriculum. To implement this goal, we have established three objectives for this project: 1) Integrate a hands-on laboratory experience including the topics of nonlinear optics, laser design, spectroscopy, and optical communication technology into the Optics course for Physics majors. 2) Develop Optics-based summer coursework for high school teachers as part of the Master of Science in Education program with opportunities for teachers to design their own classroom activities. 3) Create a new liberal arts course called The Science of Light to give non-science majors the opportunity to explore optical phenomena such as vision, liquid crystals, color, and holography. These objectives impact not only university students, but also high school science teachers and their students. Each of these objectives are being met by implementing activities which integrate modern optical technology throughout the Physics curriculum. The project is adapting experiments from the physics research and education literature and adapting more common experiments for use by teachers and their students.
