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Fell the Science is a science education and edutainment project for visually impaired kids that is working to develop didactic methods and materials that utilize all senses and that can be used to explain science topics without the need of sight. This project seeks to get blind kids and kids with severe visual limitations interested in science learning and experimentation. It also aims at providing an inclusive and equitable science education since this project can benefit all persons, with or without visual limitations. Since 2008, LatIPnet is working with the researcher leading this project, Dr. Cristina Reynaga, and her team from the research center CINVESTAV, in Guanajuato Mexico, in order to boost the social impact of Feel the Science.
The challenge: universal access to science education
This project began in 2003 when CINVESTAV started organizing a series of workshops to get kids interested in science. That is how the researchers in charge of this project came across a challenge they hadn’t foreseen: how to include blind kids in these workshops. Science is usually taught with the support of visual materials and most commercially available didactic material is designed to be visually attractive. People with visual limitations face great obstacles in accessing an effective science education, particularly because there are no adequate materials to teach science to blind people. In fact, the education system lacks programs specially designed to teach science to visually impaired kids.
The project: multisensory didactic methodologies and materiales
In this way, Cristina came across a problem of great social relevance and began working to develop multisensory didactic methodologies and materials that would allow visually impaired kids to understand several biological and physical processes. With the aid of students from art and graphic design schools, Cristina has developed 3-D tactile models using textures, colors, temperature and other features for their adequate perception through the sense of touch. Additionally, she implemented several multisensory science workshops that include interactive experiments that allow kids explore scientific topics using the senses of touch, hearing, smell, and taste. These science workshops for visually challenged kids cover the following topics: the life of fungi, cells and DNA, light phenomena, plant tissues and processes, and art and science. .
Boosting social impact through global synergies
When the members of LatIPnet met Cristina in early 2008 they immediately recognized the potential of this project to address a worldwide problem. LatIPnet first helped Cristina to obtain a patent for her novel methodology. Since then, it has been helping her gain access to resources and organizations across the world in order to foster her didactic work and to turn Feel the Science from a local project into a global solution.
LatIPnet first put Cristina in touch with researchers from NASA-Ames and the prestigious SRI International, both based in Silicon Valley, California. As part of their mission, these two organizations promote several science education and outreach activities and each of them had independently developed similar interests to those of Cristina. Several research studies show that learning via all the senses allows the student to receive information through different channels. In their own way, these channels transmit information to the brain and when they are combined, learning is significantly improved. That is why both NASA-Ames and SRI International had developed a great interest in haptic perception, or perception through touch, and when they heard about the interactive multisensory workshops organized by Cristina they immediately became interested. Since then, Cristina has maintained a continuous dialogue with researchers at the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International about the potential of her program and about the strategy to expand it to the United States. These contacts have also helped Cristina to bring her work to other organizations in California, such as the Exploratorium in San Francisco, The Tech Museum in San Jose, the Center for Science and Technology and Society at the Santa Clara University, among others.
LatIPnet also helped Cristina to get in touch with ONCE, a Spanish non-profit organization with the mission of improving the quality of blind and visually impaired persons both in Spain and across the world. Since 1998 ONCE works actively with blind associations in Latin America through the ONCE Foundation for Blind Persons in Latin America (FOAL).
And to strengthen Feel the Science, LatIPnet is helping Cristina obtain the additional financial resources that would allow her to expand her project’s reach. Together, they are also analyzing the convenience of forming either a new company or a non-profit organization in order to provide Feel the Science with the organizational support to bring its mission’s to a global scale.
There is still a long way to go, but the experience and contacts of LatIPnet are helping Cristina’s talent and enthusiasm to achieve their highest expression and to bring Feel the Science to the largest possible number of visually impaired kids in the world.
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