Development of Optics Kit for Schools in Developing Countries

In India, the pedagogy of science education is “believe what text book says”. Providing schools with appropriate teaching materials to enhance teaching has always been a challenge in a developing country like India. Generally it is not possible for a normal school in India to afford the expensive teaching materials to teach through demonstrations and experiments. Thus students are forced to believe what text book says rather than learning concepts through experiments. The International School of Photonics SPIE (International Society for Optical Engineering) student chapter came up with ‘Optics kit ’ to supplement the teaching of optics in school level. ‘Optics kit’, developed with indigenously procured components, could be sold at an affordable prize for an average Indian School. The chapter is currently selling the kit for less than $20. The content of the kit is at par with many kits already available commercially in developed countries, and the price is just 10% compared to those kits. The kit is aimed to higher secondary level students in India, where students are taught Ray optics and basics of Wave Optics. The content of the kit is developed based on this syllabus. The Optics Kit contains simple optical elements like lens, grating, polarizer, mirror, diode laser etc. The kit can be used to demonstrate optics phenomena like interference, diffraction, polarization etc. The kit was developed based on the feedback gathered by the chapter through its outreach activities. The syllabus for the kit was developed through thorough discussion with educational experts in the field of Physics. The student community welcomed the optics kit with overwhelming enthusiasm and hence the project proved to be successful in giving an opportunity for students to “See and Believe ” what they are learning