An important component of many college and university science programs is that of community outreach. Some of the more typical kinds of outreach activities include teacher training workshops, public lectures, open house “science days,” and school demonstration visits. The latter activity usually consists of students and faculty transporting equipment from their institution to a local secondary school to provide “hands-on” demonstrations or activities to a few science classes. One problem with such visits is the short interaction time (usually an hour or so), which often comes and goes and is soon forgotten by the participating students. We discuss in this paper the specifics of an outreach program that has been successful in addressing this and other issues.

Topics
Educational aids, Teacher training, Outreach, Lectures
1.
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For details see http://www.cs.moravian.edu/∼csalter/lightstick/l_st_spec_OO.html and the Journal of Chemical Education paper cited therein.
3.
The Research Corporation website; http://www.rescorp.org/.
4.
The spectrometer used in this program has since been discontinued by Ocean Optics. For details see http://www.oceanoptics.com/technical/discontinuedproducts.asp.
5.
The Ocean Optics website: http://www.oceanoptics.com. Details of the Ocean Optics educational grant program can also be found on this site.
6.
The authors make no claims as to the appropriateness of these particular spectrometers, except to say that we have been very happy with the ease of use, durability (not an insignificant quality!), and portability of the equipment—readers' opinions of these particular devices may vary.
7.
The Math Science Partnership of Greater Philadelphia; http://www.mspgp.org.
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© 2008 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2008
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