[NABS-L] Inaccessible features in geology class:

[kschaber at my.chemeketa.edu]

Hi all! 
I'm currently taking a geology class called Rivers, Glaciers and Deserts.
I'm in my third week and I'm working with a teacher who is decent, but she
also doesn't have a clew on how she can do her best to make her work easily
translatable into an accessible form. I'll give her credit for learning
fast, but her workload is also too large for my school's small but decent
disabilities department to be capable of keeping up with the size of it. The
size of the matereals is too large for my school's disabilities department
to keep up with in the time limits of the course which are nearly set in
stone. There is only one accessible media person who has an overload of
course matereals that they're not able to keep up with due to these time
limits. We have tried to prevent this problem by me signing up for a geology
class that was going to be taught by my all time favorite teacher, but at
the last minute, my college's automatic system dumped my all time favorite
science teacher because that teacher was part time, and one too many classes
were also automatically canceled along with her because of low student
enrollment. Unfortunently, nothing could be done to prevent this ground
shaking hurtle. As the result, everyone got landed with the teacher I
currently have who hasn't learned enough to even assist my school's
department, even though she's learning and helping out where she's able to
so far. 
  I suspect that there will be larger challenges ahead.

I'm working with JAWS 2022, NVDA, on a Windows 10 laptop computer and am
working with Office Word 2021. I also use a Focus 14 braille display. Part
of the matereals will involve both topographical maps and Google Earth;
which I should start seeing in my lab for next week. I heard that Google
Earth is accessible, but I have not yet experienced it nor seen anything
regarding it being accessible. How clunky is an accessible version of Google
Earth? Can I navigate it in nearly the same speed as my sighted classmates?
If I have to use it in a lab that moves faster than I'm able to keep up
with, I need to know how worth my while it will be to attempt at learning
how to use it, let alone exploring it, or simply making my in class sighted
assistant dictate everything, if not read everything. My school does not
have a tactile blackboard, which I wish it did, but because of that, it
would mean that someone who is sighted might have to describe every single
immage that appears on the computer screen. The problem with that is that
the sighted person doesn't know the topic well enough to consistently give
me a good enough description where I can get the right info out of their
descriptions that I  need to get in order to do as well as possible during
the entire course. Also, I don't know of any topographical map that is
accessible. How can I even begin to navigate around that obstacle? Do I have
to pull the old school  work completely on a sighted person's descriptions?
In geology,  the work requires all students to know the colors, designs and
features of the rocks, landmarks, or features that are being studied. A
simple rock isn't enough of a description in geology class, where it would
be enough of one in a language learning class. In any case, as I understand
it, on these maps and Google, I'm expected to study land features that are
too large to touch and fully see  what the shape would look like. They're
too far away to visit even if they were small enough to feel the entire
thing. As though that's not enough, one is expected to I.D. the kind of rock
it's made out of judging by its color and visual designs. Unfortunently, I
have not managed to find a way for that info to be fully translatable in any
accessible sence, other than the written word paired with some physical 3D
models. My school does not have a 3D printer, and it probably won't be able
to afford one any time soon. I also don't know if my current teacher can
build models either since she's a mom of 2 children who are 5 and younger,
and is practicaly working as a single mom since her biologist husband isn't
around during the week to assist her when her kids are not in day care or
school. Therefore, I have some set in stone limits to work around through
all of this mess. Does anyone have good tips on how to get the right info
out of a visual description? What are the right questions for someone who is
sighted but doesn't know geology very well? Also, if they are somewhat less
talented at describing in general, what are the right questions to guide
them in the right direction? Going back to the maps, if they are accessible,
how does one get ahold of an accessible topographical map? If they are as
inaccessible as I suspect, what else do I do to get around it? I'm looking
for some good workarounds here, giving these physical limits that I
mentioned above. Any help would be awesome! 
Kendra