[nabs-l] Question.

[Jamie Principato]

I am a Physics major, heavily involved in my school's NASA Space Grant program, and most relevant to this thread, I am president of my school's astronomy club and have been studying astronomy for just over a year now. Astronomy classes usually discuss planet and star formation, orbits, light and optics, as well as the properties of various objects in our solar system at the introductory level. All of this information can be understood nonvisually, but unless your professor is blind, or happens to be a nonvisual learner herself, I can almost guarantee it will be presented to you visually. I highly recommend that you talk to your professor well in advance of the first day of class and learn about her teaching style. If she uses pre-made graphics, you might be able to get these produced in a tactile format or have vivid descriptions written ahead of time so you can follow along in class unassisted, and just ask questions as needed. If she draws and writes things on the board, mostly from memory, then I would highly recommend getting an assistant for the class AND a tactile drawing board so that you can observe the patterns being discussed in class along with the class. Knowing what a star or planet looks like isn't important. You'll never need to look into a telescope and find Saturn manually. But knowing how the planets and stars move across the sky and around our sun is important. Knowing what a logarithmic curve looks like is important. Knowing where a beam of light will go if you bend it through a lens or with a mirror is important. Knowing how the earth wobbles as it rotates about its axis and why this means Polaris won't always be (and hasn't always been) the North Star is important. And having a way to represent these patterns tactually and verbally without falling behind is important. 

Some other things you can so to increase the likelihood of your success in Astronomy are to record lectures and urge your professor (persistently) to be very verbose and avoid no descriptive words like "this thing here". This may take frequent reminders, but don't be shy. Your teacher will ultimately prefer to be reminded constantly than to be blamed later when she hasn't been corrected and you start doing poorly in the class because of it. 

Also, get yoyr book early, in the format that you are most comfortable with, and read, read, READ! Read about the upcoming lecture topic before that lecture, and if you can, read the chapter again after lecture as you are working on homework. The more you read and listen about the same ideas, the more and more they will start to become clear. 

And finally, in addition to reading and listening, you need to talk about astronomy. Talk to your classmates. Talk to your professor during office hours, even if you don't need any specific help. Talk to your cat. Talk to anyone who will listen and try to describe the ideas you learned and get them to understand. This will help you figure out what you didn't know you were misunderstanding, which is very important if you don't know what you might not be seeing in class. And it will reinforce what you do understand. 

And finally, just a personal tip about observation. Never forget that the sun is a star, too, and we don't need our eyes to directly experience the movement and intensity and beauty of that one. :)

Best,

Jamie Principato

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 7, 2016, at 3:04 PM, Zachary N. Griego-Dreicer via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> I started out without one in geology and then ended up getting one later in the semester. Happy new year, you should call me or something sometime 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone 6 Using VoiceOver
> 
>> On Jan 7, 2016, at 12:25, Mariya Vasileva via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> Hi guys, I have a question. I'm going to be taking a descriptive astronomy course this semester. One of the OSD staff thought that I might need a person in the class with me to describe a lot of the visual things that will be shown throughout the course. Is this a good idea or is it not. I personally, don't think that I really need it. Because I'm good at visualization and I just don't think it's really all that necessary.
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