Light up your life - how to foster girl´s interest in STEM

Light represents an interdisciplinary topic of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) that is ideally suited to raise interest of pupils in physics and photonics. Especially for girls, showing the least interest in physics according to actual studies and typically being most interested in topics connecting experiences of their daily life or topics with social and societal with STEM, light represents an attractive theme. Girls connect with light attractive topics from daily life as colour and art, economic-societal topics as lighting and energy efficiency, and leisure topics as cellular phone displays or laser shows. With “Light up your life” we therefore have realized a three year long project to foster girl’s interest in STEM during adolescence based on the science of light as an interdisciplinary field. In our presentation, we introduce into the general objectives of the project, its concept, structure and strategic elements. Experimentally-based, research oriented workshops, explorative industry cooperation and a web community have been the pillars for success of this project. We will also present follow up projects connected to light and environmental challenges, light and nanotechnology, and light and biomedical applications.