PROGRAM DESIGN TO ENHANCE GEOSCIENCE OPPORTUNITIES FOR PERSONS WITH VISION IMPAIRMENT OR BLINDNESS: A MAJOR’S INFLUENCE

Persons with disabilities are underrepresented in the U. S. geosciences community. The Department of Earth Science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is actively seeking better ways to include persons of many diverse backgrounds. We currently have students with vision-related accommodation needs in our core non majors courses as well as enrolled in bachelor’s and master’s level programs. We will concentrate upon working with an undergraduate major and his perspective on issues for this presentation. Our faculty is improving their abilities to foster the scientific growth of adult students with vision impairments or blindness. Our department has partnered both informally, and now more formally, with the UALR Disabilities Support Services (DSS) staff through a grant supporting “Universal Design,” recently awarded to DSS by the U.S. Department of Education. Our collaboration has helped us gain both focus and momentum due to the pooling of our collective content and support expertise.

The Fall 2002 semester provided opportunities for Wade to assist in our core laboratory sections as an undergraduate “Lab Assistant” to faculty member instructors in both physical and historical geology sections. He also attended his first national GSA meeting in Denver (along with his service dog “Harry”) and came away with insightful observations concerning that large scale event. Further, we were fortunate to arrange for him to meet with a successful scientist that is also blind so that they could discuss what he can anticipate along his road toward professional development and growth. We are working to better utilize the low and high technology applications available to exchange knowledge. Some of this includes the use of simple models and raised relief imagery to the use of specialized plotters with software interface (e.g. TIGER plotter embossing system (Lambert and Bailey, this session);visit http://www.viewplustech.com/news.html#video) to text readers (e.g. JAWS;see www.freedomscientific.com). Wade is enrolled in a gateway course for our majors called “Geologic Methods” that entails field, computer, and writing components to better prepare our students for their sophomore and higher-level geoscience courses. We are working to best accommodate needs as the semester progresses.