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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D">Hi Nancy,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D">Thank you so much for sending this article! It was very interesting and and really cool to know that this kind of technology and creativity exists to make science more accessible to the blind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D">Harriet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> KeyStoneChapter [mailto:keystonechapter-bounces@nfbnet.org]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Nancy Lynn via KeyStoneChapter<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, April 24, 2022 11:04 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Nancy Lynn <seabreeze.stl@gmail.com><br>
<b>Cc:</b> Nancy Lynn <seabreeze.stl@gmail.com><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [KeyStoneChapter] Mercer professor creates planetarium show for visually impaired<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br>
<a href="https://den.mercer.edu/physics-professor-creates-planetarium-show-for-georgia-academy-for-the-blind-students/">https://den.mercer.edu/physics-professor-creates-planetarium-show-for-georgia-academy-for-the-blind-students/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-size:25.5pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">Physics professor creates planetarium show for Georgia Academy for the Blind students<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">April 22, 2022<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">Visually impaired students from the Georgia Academy for the Blind recently experienced a planetarium show designed especially for them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">Instead of looking up at stars projected on a dome, they each held a model of a constellation in their hands.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif"><a href="https://liberalarts.mercer.edu/faculty-and-staff/matthew-marone/"><span style="color:#416ED2">Dr. Matt Marone</span></a>, associate professor
of <a href="https://liberalarts.mercer.edu/academic-programs/majors-and-minors/physics/">
<span style="color:#416ED2">physics</span></a> in the <a href="https://liberalarts.mercer.edu/academic-programs/majors-and-minors/physics/">
<span style="color:#416ED2">College of Liberal Arts and Sciences</span></a> at <a href="http://mercer.edu">
<span style="color:#416ED2">Mercer University</span></a>, created the models of the Orion constellation using a 3D printer, keeping the needs of the visually impaired in mind.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">“We had the name of the model written in Braille at the bottom, and that oriented it. So, when the kids held it in their hands, they could feel
the Braille line at the bottom and know that was down,” Dr. Marone said. “Then, I had it oriented so that when they found the last “o” in Orion, they would move that finger up to the first big bump that they felt, which was the star Betelgeuse.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">“Then we started the planetarium show talking about that star.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">By feeling the model, the students also could discover the brightness of the stars. Brighter stars had larger diameter hemispheres, and dimmer
stars had smaller ones, he said. Some of the major stars were painted with glow-in-the-dark paint, allowing some students to experience the constellation through sight as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">The 15-minute show, held March 22 in the planetarium at the
<a href="https://www.masmacon.org/"><span style="color:#416ED2">Museum of Arts and Sciences</span></a> with the help of Science Curator Paul Fisher, continued as Dr. Marone talked the middle and high school students through feeling the model and about the properties
and mythologies of the stars.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">“For many, many, many years, people who are visually impaired or blind would just sit in there and listen and not really know what’s going on,
or they’d decide not even to attend or even go. A lot of our students had never gone (to a planetarium) before this trip,” said Neel Bennett, a teacher at the Georgia Academy for the Blind and a 2006 Mercer graduate. “It was really cool to have Dr. Marone
include the visually impaired in his passion for the constellations.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">The planetarium show was part of a larger event for the Georgia Academy for the Blind at the Macon museum. The day of activities was funded by
a grant from the <a href="https://www.nisenet.org/"><span style="color:#416ED2">National Informal STEM Education Network</span></a>, or NISE Net, with the goal of making the museum’s earth and space science exhibits more inclusive, said Kimberly Novak, curator
of education at the Museum of Arts and Sciences.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">Other activities included the opening of a temporary touch exhibit and
<a href="https://youtu.be/TLhj0-dXPsQ"><span style="color:#416ED2">claymation video</span></a> about the different layers of the atmosphere made by Georgia Academy for the Blind students; a small art exhibit on vintage salt cellars — tiny, fancy bowls that
hold salt — that students could touch; and a special animal show including pelts and snake skins to touch.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">“What helps the visually impaired actually helps everybody,” Novak said. “Touching helps all children learn, not just visually impaired. What
helps one, helps all.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">The museum currently has one of the 3D-printed constellations still on site for visually impaired visitors, and Dr. Marone plans to print more.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">For him, this is the first step in figuring out ways to make science and physics more accessible to visually impaired children.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="line-height:18.0pt;max-width:100%"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"-apple-system-font",serif">“My grand scheme is to see if I can come up with some science experiments or materials that could be used at other academies for the blind, or
by people who have a child that is visually impaired, and make science accessible to them,” he said. “They may think that there’s no room for the visually impaired in the science fields, but there can be.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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