Tips and facts
Adapted Materials for Science Instruction
Learn where to find specialized instructional science materials for students with visual impairments, as well as how to adapt your own.
Some specialized materials for science instruction are available through commercial sources, while others can be adapted or modified by the instructor. The items listed below include hands-on tactile models, as well as teaching resources.
Commercially- Available Products
- Acorn Naturalists offers a host of 3-D models appropriate for students with visual impairment.
- APH Downloadable Product Manuals are free-of-charge downloads. You may print or emboss them as needed. Science resources include the following: Adapting Science for Students with Visual Impairment: Advanced Preparation and Skills Checklist; Basic Science Tactile Graphics; Basic Tactile Anatomy Atlas; Life Science Tactile Graphics; DNA/RNA kit; Sense of Science: Animals; Sense of Science: Plants.
- APH Instructional Videos for Science Products (videos of commercial products)
- Cell Zone (commercial product) These commercially-available materials provide hands-on tactile access to biology concepts. Cell Zone offers biology education products that incorporate universal design for learning (UDL) to include more learners in biology. Their products cover many topics in biology classes, including cells, biological molecules, diversity, and cell division.
- Dicot Flower Model 3-D models of fully dissectible plants.
- Getting a Feel for Eclipses: Tactile Graphics from NASA explains details surrounding the August 2017 total solar eclipse with tactile graphics providing an illustration of the interaction and alignment of the Sun with the Moon and the Earth. Associated activities will clarify the nature of eclipses.
- High Dots can be used to mark graphs, maps, keyboards, and more.
- Independence Science is an organization founded by Dr Cary Supalo, a chemist who is blind. They offer a number of specialized products, a resource program, and an access blog. Most notable among the products offered is the Talking LabQuest, an adapted version of the commonly used Vernier LabQuest, equipped with speech capability and utilizable with many of the Vernier probes.
- Making Secondary Science Accessible with APH Products
- Molymod Kits to Build Hands-on Molecular Models
- PIAF (Pictures-in-a-Flash)
- Reach for the Stars: Touch, Look, Listen, Learn is a free iBook available for download to use on an iPad. It presents students in grades 4-8 with a new approach to astronomy, using interactive interviews, graphs, interactive questions, and a glossary.
- Science and Health Products from American Printing House for the Blind (APH) Many of these items are available through Federal Quota Funds.
- Touch the Universe: A NASA Braille Book of Astronomy by Noreen Grice is designed to make astronomy accessible to students who are blind or visually impaired. The book uses a combination of braille and large-print captions with photos from the Hubble Space Telescope and embossed shapes that represent various astronomical objects such as stars, gas clouds, and jets of matter streaming into space.
- The Whalemobile is a life-sized (43 feet long) humpback whale you can touch. It is modeled after a real whale, named Nile, who spends her summers off the coast of Massachusetts. Cynde McInnis brings Nile into schools, libraries and summer programs sharing her experience as a whale watch naturalist with children. Whale biology, sounds, natural history, and individual identification are among a few topics she presents using slides, sounds and video. Nile has been to visit Perkins School for the Blind.
- Wheatley Tactile Diagramming Kit
- Wikki Stix (commercial product)
Adaptations
- Adaptations for Braille and Large Print Rulers
- Adapting Cylinders for Students with Visual Impairments
- Adapting a Triple Beam Balance
- Molymod Molecule Model – Differentiating Similarly-Sized Atoms
- Simple Adaptations to Increase Accessibility in Science Instruction
- Tactile Rain Gauge
- Use of an Adapted Simple Balance
Other Resources
- Adapting Science for Students with Visual Impairments
- APH Instructional Videos for Science Products
- Blind Scientist Tools
- Braille Science Examples from ViewPlus
- PhET Interactive Simulations for Math and Science
- Simple Adaptations to Increase Accessibility in Science Instruction
- Touch Grids: A System for Conceptualizing Spatial Concepts
- Using Federal Quota Funds for Science Materials
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