Gifted and Talented

I've been lucky enough to have some help from Richard Webb - a work experience student from a local college - this week. Yesterday we hosted an Introduction to Photonics workshop here at the University of Southampton's School of Physics and Astronomy - here's what Richard had to say about it.


"Yesterday we had an interesting morning with a number of National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) students which started off with a short talk on photonics and optics. We then got straight to making holograms and had some great results; there were some brilliant holograms of monsters, gears and coins and everyone got to keep their masterpiece. We then had some hands-on activities for the students to get involved with, such as spectroscopy, 3d astronomy and a great talk from a theoretical astronomer. After a short break there was a video on Careers in Optics [free CD from SPIE] followed by a short tour of the physics and holography lab and a lovely lunch. All in all everyone had a great morning."

(photo by Tom Sloan taken during Creative partnerships project)

What did the students say who took part think? : -

" It was something to do in the holidays and you got your own hologram"

"It made me consider issues I wouldn't normally think about"

"Ecouraging thinking about a topic that we haven't looked at before. We all took part, it was a very hands-on workshop"


My thanks to Charlotte Everitt of our Outreach and Partnership Team who organised the event and to Katrine Rogers, Greg Elliott and Sarah Clark who helped with the students.