Modules to enhance smart lighting education

Over the past several years there has been a rapid advancement in solid state lighting applications brought on by the development of high efficiency light emitting diodes. Development of lighting devices, systems and products that meet the demands of the future lighting market place requires workers from many discip lines including engi neers, scientists, designers and architects. The National Sc ience Foundation has recognized this fact and established the Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center that promotes research leading to smart lighting systems, partners with industry to enhance innovation and educates a diverse, world-class workforce. The lead institution is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with core 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 of advanced smart lighting systems workers often have little or no formal education in basic optics, lighting and illumination. This paper describes the initial stages of the development of self-contained and universally applicable educational modules that target essential optics topics needed for lighting applications. The modules are intended to be easily 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 such as video lectures, video presentations of students-teaching-students, classroom activities, assessment tools, student research projects and laboratories inte grated into learning modules. Sample m odules and resources will be highlighted. Other outreach activities such as plans for coursework, undergraduate research, design projects, and high school enrichment programs will be discussed. Keywords: Optics education, Lighting education, Course modules