STEM LABORATORY ACTIVITIES AND FIELD-BASED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR STUDENTS IN GEOSCIENCES WITH ORTHOPEDIC AND SENSORY DISABILITIES

Geology is not fully accessible to students, who in some cases are not physically able to participate in geological training, specifically those having vision and orthopedic disabilities. This is due to the inherently use of visual aids and its field-based educational requirements which make introducing these students to geosciences challenging. By working directly with these students and fully understanding their direct needs and teaching requirements, instructors realize the inaccessibility of traditional methods of teaching geosciences and the need for incorporating more diverse and advanced learning tools to support the teaching requirements for geosciences/STEM courses.

Therefore to make our labs and field trips accessible to these students, two approaches are implemented. First, lab materials and assessment tests are created for students with vision impairments by incorporating unique tactile topographic maps and stratigraphic columns with braille descriptions as well as 3D models of fossils, geologic structures and sedimentary structures. Second, comprehensive ArcGIS Online Story Maps and workbooks for students with orthopedic disabilities are created. The fully developed Story Maps describing the geology of difficult to access sites of Georgia are developed for students with orthopedic disabilities and are supplemented with GigaPan photography, detailed geologic sketches, workbook, thin sections, and videos of each site. All materials can also be used by any student who may benefit from these new course materials, including multi-sensory learning.