[accessibleimage] Re: Fw: BlindNews: Pictures for the hands

Ha - Ha - Ha!  I just sent this to Robert before I saw that he sent it
to us!  I guess we're on the same wave length!  Have a great week,
folks!

>>> rjaquiss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 08/06/06 9:49 PM >>>
Hello:

     I thought this would be of interest.

Regards,

Robert Jaquiss

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "BlindNews Mailing List" <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 7:51 PM
Subject: BlindNews: Pictures for the hands


> Carroll County Times, Maryland USA
> Sunday, August 06, 2006
>
> Pictures for the hands
>
> By Justin Palk, Staff Writer
>
> Sunday, August 06, 2006
>
> BALTIMORE - Hands were everywhere - running over telescopes and
lenses, 
> plaster models of the moon's surface, even over photographs of stars,

> galaxies and the moon.
>
> It was a hands-on astronomy lesson the Westminster Astronomical
Society 
> held for students who are blind, part of a greater effort by the
National 
> Federation of the Blind to make science, math and technology classes
more 
> accessible and attractive to blind students.
>
> "How does our galaxy look?" 14-year-old Edgar Gonzalez of Salt Lake
City 
> asked at one point during the class.
>
> "I don't know," replied 13-year-old Karen Arcos of Los Angeles.
>
> Later in the session, when one of the Westminster Astronomical
Society 
> volunteers passed around a tactile image of the M101 spiral galaxy,
which 
> has a similar shape to our own Milky Way, Arcos held it against her
chest, 
> as she ran her fingers over the bumpy black and white image.
>
> "Yeah, see, it's like a spiral that gets smaller and smaller," she
said.
>
> Although people had sometimes explained to her how the sky looks,
she'd 
> never had the opportunity to do any astronomy before, Arcos said.
>
> Being able to feel the images beneath her fingers isn't an
opportunity she 
> often gets, and it's useful, she said.
>
> "You can see if [the] explanations match up with what you imagined,"
Arcos 
> said.
>
> Volunteers from the Westminster Astronomical Society used digital
cameras 
> attached to telescopes to take pictures of the moon, Jupiter and a 
> four-star formation called the "Double Double", which they then
inverted - 
> turning black areas on the picture white and white areas black.
>
> When the images are transferred to specially-coated swellform paper
and 
> run through a swellform printer, the dark spots on the paper are
raised 
> slightly above the white background, resulting in a tactile image
that can 
> be felt as well as seen.
>
> It's been done before - before the session started some stock images
had 
> already been printed on swellform paper in case the weather was bad.
>
> To the best of anyone's knowledge, though, it had never been done
live, 
> with just a few minutes turnaround between the telescope and the
printout 
> getting to the students' hands, said Brian Eney, a society board
member 
> and one of the volunteers on Sunday.
>
> Unfortunately, the live pictures were not as compelling as the
event's 
> organizers had hoped - a thin layer of high clouds made getting clear

> pictures difficult, although that ended up being just another part of
the 
> lesson, said Dave Gede, the Westminster Astronomical Society's
president.
>
> "It's one of the problems of this hobby," he said. "You're sort of at
the 
> mercy of the weather."
>
> Blind children often get guided out of math, science and technology 
> classes, said Mary Jo Thorpe, an education program specialist with
the 
> National Federation of the Blind.
>
> For three years now, the federation's Jernigan Institute has been
hosting 
> summer science academies - of which Sunday's star party was a part -
to 
> try and get blind children interested in those subjects, she said.
>
> Next year, the Jernigan Institute plans to team up with the Johns
Hopkins 
> University's Whiting School of Engineering to host a youth slam
featuring 
> science, math, engineering and technology events for some 200 blind 
> students, Thorpe said.
>
> In addition to hosting the science academies and youth slams, the 
> Federation has recently unveiled a new Web page for the National
Center 
> for Blind Youth in Science at www.blindscience.org, she said, which
will 
> eventually provide science resources for blind students and their
parents 
> and teachers.
>
> Reach staff writer Justin Palk at 410-751-5909 or
jpalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
http://www.carrollcounty.com/articles/2006/08/06/features/in_focus/focus1i.txt

>
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