On January 25, 2014, Precision Optical hosted an educational training event for local high school physics and chemistry teachers to incorporate optics into their curriculum. The event was made possible through the combined efforts of Vital Link (http://vitallinkoc.org/), the OISC (http://oisc.grou.ps/), the OSSC (http://www.ossc.org/), and Precision Optical. The event afforded the unique opportunity for community organizations, professional organizations, businesses, and educators to gather together in a collaborative effort to promote optics and photonics education to the next generation.
Presenters at the event included Donn Silbermann, of the OISC, and Dr. Brian Monacelli, who teaches the Photonics Technicians course at Irvine Valley College. Precision Optical VP of Engineering Nick Lambert and VP of Sales and Marketing Paul Dimeck assisted in providing real world professional insight. Demonstrated at the event was the The Photonics Explorer Kit©, which includes a variety of tools such as lasers, polarizers, diffraction gratings, and custom prisms supplied by Precision Optical. These kits are designed to be used by teachers and students in classroom settings to allow for hands-on optics learning.
Precision Optical looks forward to hosting more events like these. Our ultimate goal is to inspire students to pursue collegiate educations and, later, careers in optics and photonics. Thereby, we aim to create a regenerative ecosystem of optics and photonics technicians in our surrounding community. If introducing Photonics Explorer Kits to high school educators serves as a “spark” for optics curriculum at the high school level, we will be extremely proud to be part of such an endeavor.
