Middle and High-School students from across Seattle had the opportunity to take advantage of the scary season to learn more about light, how it can be used not just to scare away the seasonal spirits, but also in energy and communication. 

IMOD and the Clean Energy Institute (CEI) worked with Seattle-based iUrbanTeen. iUrbanTeen organized an outreach event at which CEI and IMOD were invited to run STEM activity sessions. IMOD taught portions of our lessons: “Making Light” and “Glowing Paper”. The lessons were connected by narrative to integrate with CEI lessons on solar cells and solar cars.

A theme emerged of light – what makes it, how it is converted from one form to another, and then how that is applied in solar cells and batteries. The event was held at the North Seattle College campus. Other partners such as UW STEM PALS also ran sessions. There were three sessions in total of ~1 hour each during which visiting High School and Middle School students were able to participate in hands-on activities that taught specific concepts within the theme described above. Graduate, undergraduate, and post docs ran the event as a group, sharing their stories with students while teaching the lessons