Statewide Event for K-12 Students Receives STEM Award

Achievement date: 
2017
Outcome/accomplishment: 

An event hosted by a member institution of the Center for Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications (LESA), an NSF-funded Engineering Research Center (ERC) headquartered at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), received an award from Big Brothers Big Sisters for an event attended by 1,500 K-12 students from around New Mexico. 

Impact/benefits: 

The “Best Real World Application of STEM” award recognized a program that used hands-on activities to introduce students to LED science through music and artwork. The event drew many young women and minorities—groups under-represented in the sciences—in an effort to build their interest in pursuing the STEM fields.

Explanation/Background: 

The ERC team at the University of New Mexico (UNM) received the award at the Big Brothers Big Sisters Discovery Festival in Albuquerque, NM. The on-campus event included a demonstration of Visible Light Communication (VLC) and light LEDs.

The event demonstrated VLC to send a song via laser beam to a solar cell connected to a speaker. Diffraction glasses were distributed so students could see what colors mix together to make white light.

Impressing K-12 students with the science of LEDs can help build a pipeline of students who may decide to enter college with a major in a STEM Field. Growing the future home-grown workforce in the STEM fields is a widely held goal of the U.S. education system and industry, and a core mission of the NSF-funded ERCs.

Many policymakers and industry members have also invested in developing more STEM students in particular among under-represented groups such as the young women and minorities that attended the UNM program.