Education - Facination of light in Brussel

July 2007

Innovation begins in the minds of young people, and technologies of the future need specialists. At present, we have a need for highly qualified young specialists so that our industry and research community can continue to grow in the coming years. We need to reach out to the general public and to young people in particular and inspire them with an understanding and a fascination for science!

The ‘Fascination of Light’ exhibition is a joint initiative between organizations and associations from research, industry and the media and was originally supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). The exhibition so far has been shown at 56 locations in Germany with a total of more than 150,000 visitors, mainly young people, pupils and teachers. Now with the support of the European Commission the interactive exhibition is traveling through Europe . From 5 till 18 March ‘Fascination of Light’ was hosted by a NEMO partner, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Opening event: “A message to young people”

In her enthusiastic opening speech Commissioner Viviane Reding specifically addressed the young people of today - boys and especially girls – who, as tomorrow’s successful scientists and engineers, will have the opportunity to discover new knowledge and invent new ways to use that knowledge: “A career in science can be a very rewarding one. You will be the ones who will create a bright future with tomorrow’s inventions.”

Business decision makers and important players in the domain of science, innovation and education attended the opening event together with the most important target group of the exhibition, the children. Several school classes were present and were actively enjoying the exhibition. At this occasion, Philips demonstrated its 3D television and Syn 4D displayed two fascinating 4D prints.

Guided tours

More than 1100 schoolchildren visited the exhibition during the more than 100 guided tours for schools. More than 100 teachers and 40 future teachers followed one of the workshops related to ‘Fascination of Light’. The workshops were organized to inform the teachers about “NEMO’s Educational Kit for Micro-optics : Learn and Teach Optics”, and how this edu kit can be used in the classroom as an illustration of the theory and how it can be used for problem-solving exercises. The teachers that attended the training received an edu kit for free.

For the general public guided tours were organized during the weekends, during lunch times and in the evenings. In total more than 2000 people visited ‘Fascination of Light’ in Brussels , on the campus of the Vrije Univeristeit Brussel.

From Nathalie Debaes , Project Support Officer, Lab for Photonics, Brussel

Paper published in NEMO's newsletter ( Network of Excellence on Micro-Optics). http://www.micro-optics.org/

Call for papers to all Holographers having children: In artbridge we have noticed that children who grow up with holography, have developed a new way of representation using 3D object and 3D creation where other children prefer a flat drawing. All similar experience and report will be collected and published in artbridge news, as a way to show how the holographic visualisation can develop constructive thoughts. All papers and anecdotes can be sent to me at: om@artbridge.info