Guide
Tactile graphics for geoscience education
Free tactile graphics for geoscience courses created by a geology professor!
I’m a huge fan of work done by Dr. Kent Ratajeski making geoscience more accessible to blind people. I only recently stumbled across his work, and we need more educators like him in the world.
When a blind student took one of his geology classes, he would spend hours creating tactile models out of clay and other art supplies so that she could feel them and fully participate in class. He also created tactile diagrams using the printer in the disability resource centre at the university where he worked.
After that semester finished he applied for and was awarded a grant, so that he could turn his work into an online database. That’s how I found it. A searchable website containing a number of geoscience related images, specifically designed to be used by blind students. Although I’m not a student, it’s so rare that I get access to anything like this. Being able to print one of these off and run it through the tactile printing machine I have is such a great feeling. These are complex concepts, so the time he’s taken to adapt them into a format that can be felt and understood by blind people can’t be underestimated.
Here’s a link to his work for those of you who are interested: Geological Tactile Image Repository.
Image description, written here rather than in the alt text because I think sighted people will also benefit: Tactile representation of the focus and epicentre of an earthquake.
At the centre, there’s a circular target-like symbol. The innermost circle represents the focus (or hypocentre) of the earthquake, which is the point within the Earth where the earthquake originates. A dashed line extends vertically from the focus to a point on the Earth’s surface, which is marked by another dot. This point on the surface is the epicentre of the earthquake, directly above the focus.
The surrounding lines and shapes represent fault lines, and there is a small line extending upwards, pointing to the earth’s surface.
Braille labels are placed around the diagram, identifying each area.
By Connor Scott-Gardner on CatchTheseWords website (reposted with permission)
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