Abstract

As the only photonics center in Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Photonics Institute (PRPI) has developed education and outreach projects, partnering with other institutions and private companies to optimize the use of available resources. We present our experience, challenges, rewards, and results for the following projects:

- Tours: K-12 students visit our facilities in a science tour including a presentation on the Arecibo Observatory (AO) and the Digital Planet Geodome. We present optics demonstrations and other information. In the first three months we hosted fifteen schools impacting over 1,400 students.

- Outreach: We have newly active outreach and recruiting activities for Puerto Rico (PR) schools.

- Teachers: With the PR Math-Science Partnership (MSP) Program, we have given a full-day workshop on optics and photonics experiments for 5^th-12^th grade teachers, and a master class at the annual MSP Congress. We have impacted over 500 teachers through these initiatives.

- Continuing Education: We have given continuing education courses in addition to the MSP workshops.

- General Public: We partner with museums in PR, the University of Turabo, and the AO Visitor Center to build optics exhibits, many developed by students.

- Video: PRPI is promoting the 2015 International Year of Light, creating: 1. A short video with students and faculty from the Universidad Metropolitana (UMET) Schools of Communication and Business Administration; 2. A longer video with the production company Geoambiente.

- Apps: Our website will include ray tracing and wave propagation applications, developed by UMET Computer Science students.

- Capstone: Engineering students at the School of Engineering at Universidad del Turabo are developing laser pattern generators.

© 2015 OSA, SPIE, IEEE Photonics Society