We have gotten many requests for projects involving fiber optic communications for science fairs and K-12 science class projects. We thought we'd share with you the projects we developed for our own kids in the scouts and has been used in classrooms and science fairs. We've added a few more advanced exercises to enhance it for older students.

Fiber optics carries signals as pulses of light while copper cables carry signals as pulses of electrons. As the photo below by AT&T from the 1970s showed, one hair-thin fiber can carry more signals than the giant copper telephone cable in the photo. Today's fibers can carry millions of times the data that that fiber could 40 years ago!