FOA Online Fiber Optic Reference Guide FOA Videos on YouTube
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Fiber
Optics Lesson Plan #1 For STEM Teachers
Fiber optics is the way the world communicates, but how it works is a mystery to most everyone. The Fiber Optic Association has created these simple lessons for teachers to show their students how fiber optics connects the world - and them to the Internet - and how fiber communicates with light. These experiments have been used with students from Kindergarten to High School, so don't hesitate to show them to your students. It's easy to demonstrate how fiber works - you can do it with a sample of plastic fiber (available free from FOA) and a laser pointer like the photo below and shown in the YouTube video "Fiber Optics For Teachers - An Introduction."  Free Demo Kits FOA has samples of this kind of fiber that we will send to teachers at schools in the US or you can find it at science distributors or on Amazon. Teachers in the US and Canada can request a sample by sending an email to the FOA at <info@foa.org> with your name, the school where you teach and a mailing address. What Do You Need For The Demo? Besides the FOA plastic optical fiber (POF) sample, all you need is a laser pointer. The best laser pointer for this kind of demo is the green laser version shown below which we purchased from Amazon for about $20, but any laser pointer will work. There are several things you can do to make the demo better.
Now you can watch the video "Fiber Optics For Teachers - An Introduction." and duplicate the demo. Another
demonstration you can do uses a larger plastic
rod. It shows how the light is trapped in the fiber and transmitted
through it. This uses a large plastic rod but the principle is the same
as the smaller fiber.
 Here
are more details on this and other demonstrations you
can do in class or help your students with science projects.
More Classroom Curriculum Materials, Videos And Demos Or Labs FOA creates lots of curriculum materials for our hundreds of schools around the world and much of it is appropriate for introducing students to fiber optics. The place to begin is the FOA YouTube video "Fiber Optics For Teachers - An Introduction." It shows some demos you can do in the classroom and offers a sample of the plastic optical fiber for teachers. There are 3 videos in the FOA "Fiber Optics Live" series that show how fiber works using large (30mm) acrylic rods and a laser pointer: How Light Travels In A Fiber Fiber Attenuation Connection Loss FOA has a video lecture series on YouTube with over 40 lectures and the first one is a good introduction on how fiber is used in communications: FOA Lecture 1: Fiber Optics & Communications FOA has a video about all the places where fiber is used - it's called "Where Are The Jobs In Fiber Optics" and it not only shows you where fiber is used but where job opportunities are for those interested in working in this field. Students who are interested in fiber optics as a career should watch the FOA video "Careers in Fiber Optics." Here are links to all the FOA YouTube videos. PowerPoint Presentation On Fiber Optics For Teachers Here is a short PowerPoint presentation you can give to your classes yourself. It is aimed at introducing fiber optic technology to science or career education students and showing what career opportunities exist in the field. 
Fiber Optic Science Project FOA Fiber Optic Science Project - created by a middle school student with the FOA's help, this project can be duplicated and expanded by science students for a class project or a science fair project.
FOA Textbooks: FOA has a dozen textbooks on fiber optics we publish,
including one on basic fiber optics available in 4 languages - English,
Spanish, French and Portuguese. Here is a list of FOA textbooks. Plus we have Lennie Lightwave's Guide to Fiber Optics (online), also available in paperback for $9.95 FOA has an Affiliate Program where we share educational materials with teachers who want to teach classroom and lab sessions on fiber optics as part of an IT or Telecom program. More information on the FOA Affiliate Program is here.
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