Video
Measuring Dry Materials for the Student Who is Visually Impaired
In this video, Kate Fraser demonstrates strategies for teaching students with visual impairment to measure dry ingredients.
In this video, Kate demonstrates strategies for teaching students with visual impairment to measure dry ingredients. In addition, there is a demonstration of the use of a talking scale.
Transcript: Measuring Dry Ingredients
FRASER: Hello, I’m Kate Fraser from the Perkins School for the Blind. Today we’ll be talking about measuring dry materials in the science classroom for the student who is visually impaired.
We have here some dry material, stirring rods, measuring spoons, a measuring cup, a small container, and a talking scale.
First, let’s talk about dry measuring using measuring spoons and measuring cups. Given a spoon of the amount of measurement that you desire for your experiment, instruct the student to dip, what I call the dip level method.
So, bring it over and hold it level. Get your stirring rod, which will work as your leveling stick, and the student can actually feel when they’re on the level here. Bring it across and level off the excess.
Then bring your material over to your experiment.
For dry, measure your desired amount and dip. It may take a student practice; they may need to be directly taught to tip, there’s not a lot in the container.
Again, hold it level, come find the level, bring it across, and again, add it to the experiment.
So now we introduce the talking scale.
[Talking scale voice]: Hello.
[Talking scale voice]: I’m ready.
We’ve already established that this container has a negligible about of mass.
Put this on our talking scale once it’s told us that it’s ready, and we’d like to measure about 70 grams of this material for our particular experiment.
So once we’ve done that, we’re going to add the material.
[Talking scale voice]: 67 grams.
So we might add a bit more to get it to 70. I’ll add a little bit more.
[Talking scale voice]: 73 grams.
OK, and just continue until you get the right amount. The student can hear and measure quite accurately.
[Talking scale voice]: 70 grams.
Now we have to and we say goodbye to our talking scale for today.
And that is our teachable moment for today – measuring dry materials for experiments for students with visual impairments.
Presented by Kate Fraser
Length of time to complete: approximately 5 minutes
