Modules to enhance smart lighting education

摘要

Over the past several years there has been a rapid advancement in solid state lighting applications brought on by thedevelopment of high efficiency light emitting diodes. Development of lighting devices, systems and products that meetthe demands of the future lighting marketplace requires workers from many disciplines including engineers, scientists,designers and architects. The National Science Foundation has recognized this fact and established the Smart LightingEngineering Research Center that promotes research leading to smart lighting systems, partners with industry to enhanceinnovation and educates a diverse, world-class workforce. The lead institution is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute withcore partners Boston University and The University of New Mexico. Outreach partners include Howard University,Morgan State University, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Because of the multidisciplinary nature ofadvanced smart lighting systems workers often have little or no formal education in basic optics, lighting andillumination. This paper describes the initial stages of the development of self-contained and universally applicableeducational modules that target essential optics topics needed for lighting applications. The modules are intended to beeasily incorporated into new and existing courses by a variety of educators and/or to be used in a series of stand-alone,asynchronous training exercises by new graduate students. The ultimate goal of this effort is to produce resources suchas video lectures, video presentations of students-teaching-students, classroom activities, assessment tools, studentresearch projects and laboratories integrated into learning modules. Sample modules and resources will be highlighted.Other outreach activities such as plans for coursework, undergraduate research, design projects, and high schoolenrichment programs will be discussed.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.