ULSPIE Student Chapter: International Day of Light 2018

On 16th of May which is the International Day of Light (IDL), representatives from University of Latvia SPIE and OSA Student chapters went to Cesis - a town in the northern part of the central Vidzeme upland, Latvia. Cesis is not only a nice medieval town with lots of art and sports attractions, but also a hometown of a few members of UL SPIE Chapter. On this day when the whole world celebrate the miracle of light we chose Cesis to organize a few outreach events to promote the use of light in technologies and to raise awareness of this astonishing phenomenon.

Marta explaining the light phenomenon

The International Day of Light is a global initiative that provides an annual focal point for the continued appreciation of light and the role it plays in science, culture and art, education, and sustainable development, and in fields as diverse as medicine, communications, and energy. [1]

This year UL SPIE and local company “LEDENES” from Cesis made a wonderful cooperation jointly organizing a photo contest “Capture the LED light” and putting out the finalist printed photos at an art exhibition. [2] Find out more here.

On IDL, Tatjana and Marta from OSA and UL SPIE Student Chapters went to Cesis Town Pastarina Elementary school to show and educate young enthusiasts in 5th and 6th grades about light and its applications. For the afternoon class Tatjana and Marta prepared an interactive overview on the topic where light could be applied, asking kids to name the most interesting examples, tell stories on how they see and use light in their everyday lives.

Checking out the diffraction effect in 3D glasses

Later the children divided in groups and actively involved in simple, fun and educational demonstrations of different light phenomena, by using OSA Optics Suitcase [3], regular flashlights, 3D glasses, red light and blue/violet light to observe fluorescence.

Tatjana: "If life gives you lemons, make a lemonade!"

Final and the most exciting task was to create the electric circuit from lemons and to make a little white LED shine - as the name of the class was “Shine with us!” - we definitely did!