New Program Equips Florida Teachers with Photonics Resources and Forges Community Connections
CREOL’s Teacher Ambassador Program provides lesson plans and activities for high school teachers, with the goal of increasing awareness about UCF’s photonics program
Eric Grenda holds the telescope that he built in CREOL classroom A214.
“I think this is going to be the highlight of my summer,” he says.
Grenda teaches physics at Colonial High School. He and seven other teachers from around Central Florida spent three days building photonic devices, doing hands-on experiments with light, and hearing from CREOL’s expert faculty members.
But while tinkering with lasers is fun, the most important part is what they can bring back to their classrooms.
“This program is stupendous and innovative,” Grenda says. “When I’m being the teacher, sometimes it’s hard for me to put myself in student’s shoes. This was a good reminder of how teaching needs to be innovative, teaching needs to be fun, and teaching needs to get students intellectually stimulated.”
Those are some of the goals of CREOL’s first Teacher Ambassador Program. Unlike normal professional development workshops, the sessions also empowered teachers to become representatives for the College – and in turn, introduce more high school students to what CREOL has to offer.
“They’re learning a great deal about photonics,” CREOL Undergraduate Program Associate Director Mike McKee says. “More importantly, they have some great activities to use with their students, so they can see the impact of photonics in their daily lives.”
While high school physics courses typically focus on topics like mechanics and electromagnetism, photonics doesn’t always make it into the classroom. Introducing high school photonics lessons is therefore a key strategy to inspire the next generation of photonics engineers, which are in high demand. The U.S. Department of Labor projects that each year, there are more than 10,000 job openings for photonics engineers – 700 of which are in Florida. But only 80 to 100 students in the entire U.S. graduate with bachelor’s degrees in photonics engineering. UCF and CREOL proudly supply more than one third of those graduates, as one of only six universities in the U.S. with a dedicated photonics bachelor’s program.
McKee runs CREOL’s program – the only one of its kind in the state.
“So hopefully teachers will share information about a career in photonics with their students,” he says.
Besides Telescope Assembly 101, teachers also learned soldering, laser safety, and free-space optical communication. They’ll return to their schools with kits full of ready-to-use lab supplies and lesson plans. The activities were planned by CREOL senior Kiva McCracken.
“These teachers are already really passionate in their field,” McCracken says. “Here, we’re not only giving them something new to be passionate about – but also the resources to back that up. And we’re already forming connections to do further outreach.”
McCracken says one of the teachers invited her to give a talk to more than 200 high school engineering students. This event also follows CREOL’s open house, which welcomed about 40 curious high school students for lab tours. Now there are plans for larger-scale events, like field trips for entire 11th and 12th grade cohorts. It’s a sign the outreach efforts are producing momentum.
“I need more knowledge about it so I can promote it,” Hagerty High School physics teacher Amany Bekheit says. “I didn’t imagine how much lasers are involved in many fields.”
McKee says the key to inspiring future engineers is not just that knowledge – but the hands-on activities that apply it to real-life examples.
“Putting teachers through these activities, I think, is a reminder of what we are ultimately doing and how we’re serving our community,” Grenda says.
CREOL plans to continue the Teacher Ambassador Program next summer, providing an opportunity for more Central Florida teachers to experience the world of photonics. The College has a suite of outreach and educational resources available here.
