We used [the HOO program] as part of the science program. They really enjoy it. They like the hands on stuff—getting down on the floor and working with the lasers. I used the target and mirror activity as the final for the class. They work on it in groups. They could set the target up anywhere they wanted past the target, so they had to shoot past it and come back to it. They had to use all three mirrors. If they hit the target on the first shot they got an A. A+ if it was dead center. If the didn’t make it, we turned it off and set it up again. If they made it on the second try it was a B. The third shot was a C. If the couldn’t make it on the third shot they got a pass.

They really enjoyed that hands-on test. It was a culmination of everything they had been practicing. We had been doing the sighting through the water and setting up the mirrors on the tables, and got the fog machines out so they could see what was going on.

It was part of our module on light and color. Then we started doing spectrum. For the color part of it, that’s when we got into reflection and refraction unit and got into telescopes and kaleidoscopes. I took a bunch of the kaleidoscopes how, and with my son’s digital camera I took pictures of the inside of them and printed them so kids could take home a picture of what one section of their kaleidoscopes looked like. Some of them put them on their computers as screensavers.

We went to the Brewster Kaleidoscope web site and used that as part of their computer component. They had to find different kinds of kaleidoscopes that were listed on that web site. We did that before we actually made them so they could see that you can get different outcomes by changing the angles of mirrors. We had some kids that were really excited about them.

I work on a reservation with 80 percent Native American and 10 to 12 percent Hispanic students. About 85 to 90 percent get free or reduced lunches. It’s a real fun, easy way to get them to think about science as not hard…they can do it. They get good positive feedback right off the bat so that helps them when we get to the more mundane part of science with more reading. They’ll stick with it because they can see “Oh yeah, there’s a point to this.

We really enjoy our mentor coming in. He brings us some really cool stuff with optics and light that we don’t normally get. This year he showed us how the military is using infrared lasers to send messages. He was using light to send sound. It was very cool and kids were very engaged.

Last year he brought in fiber optic cable. We ran it around the room and into the next classroom. He brings in all kinds of things he kids would not normally have access to. They enjoy there’s another way to do light.

They have become better team players. Their cooperative learning is better. When they do skills test they have to cooperate with their partners or the experiment doesn’t work.

The kids enjoy it. If the didn’t get Hands-On Optics, they’d get to see a picture of a prism and a rainbow in a book. That’s it. Where as with this they get to watch it, see it, play with it. For us when we were working with the Pythagorean Theorem, it helped with angles. So it can blend into any curriculum.

The teachers don’t need a lot of scientific knowledge. Everything they need is there in the kits or the web sites or help they have. They can do it without having to have a masters in optics.

Kristi Southern works with 8th graders on a reservation in Washington State. Her budget for the whole year is $100 for four classes.