The lighting lab in SAS 120 Global Poverty: Critical Thinking and Taking Action allowed myself, and my fellow classmates, to apply concepts and ideas we had talked about in class to a real world scenario. It further allowed us to step into the shoes of a development worker, analyzing the possible pitfalls or benefits of a given light and considering how to successfully market the product in a given area. From an academic and humanitarian standpoint, working with solar powered lighting is exciting. Today, more people die from respiratory diseases than any other disease and a way to decrease this number is to eliminate the need to burn biomass for cooking or lighting. The D-Lab has projects that deal with improved cooking stoves, but the Lighting Lab dealt only with personal lighting – kerosene is used widely in places like Africa and the goal is to replace that kerosene with sustainable products that do not threaten human health. After quantitatively measuring both the Ta...