Exploring the Invisible : A Tactile and Braille Exhibit of Astronomical Images Best Practices

Kimberly Kowal Arcand Megan Watzke Chris De Pree Chandra X-ray Center/SAO Chandra X-ray Center/SAO Agnes Scott College E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Summary Key Words A tactile/Braille exhibit for the visually impaired community in the USA was Public Outreach launched in July 2009. The exhibit is part of the global From Earth to the General Universe (FETTU) project, a Cornerstone of the International Year of Astronomy Astronomy 2009. The science content of the travelling tactile/Braille exhibit includes Materials for the Visually Impaired explanations of our Sun, Eta Carinae, the Crab Nebula, the Whirlpool Galaxy Braille and the electromagnetic spectrum, and was adapted from the tactile/Braille Tactile book Touch the Invisible Sky. We present some of the early observations and findings on the tactile/Braille FETTU exhibit. The new exhibit opens a wider door to experiencing and understanding astronomy for the underserved visually impaired population.

Introduction etary formation, galaxy growth and even views of our Universe, bringing the science the Big Bang. of astronomy to a diverse and worldwide Astronomy is considered by many to be audience. The images, which represent the one of the most visual of the sciences. Astronomy is now simultaneously a visual incredible variety of astronomical objects Many people have some experience with science that must also be communicated that are known to exist, are being exhibited visually processing and reacting to astro- in ways that include information about in over 850 locations throughout the world nomical information, beginning with gazing non-visual phenomena. It is this inherent in 2009 and 2010 as part of the Interna- at the night sky. Today, however, astronomy duality in modern astronomy that positions tional Year of Astronomy 2009. In the United and astrophysics extend far beyond what is the subject matter uniquely to serve both States, over 40 FETTU exhibits (approxi- detectable with the human eye. Research- the sighted and non-sighted communities. mately half of which are funded by NASA) ers explore the Universe through a modern Astronomy can capitalise on how the Uni- are occurring in non-traditional astronomy “tool kit” of space-borne telescopes and verse is studied in non-visual ways to help outreach locations such as airports, librar- ground-based observatories that cover the various audiences in the general public ies, parks and college campus greens. The entire electromagnetic spectrum. It is the engage in and interpret the wondrous dis- goal of the FETTU project — run by the combination of these different types of light coveries of the cosmos. Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) — has been — from high energy X-rays and gamma to engage the largest number of people rays to low energy microwaves and radio possible. In July 2009, a NASA-funded waves — that has enabled numerous excit- Background tactile and Braille exhibit was launched for ing discoveries. Without multi-wavelength the visually impaired community as part of astronomy that includes “invisible” light, we The From Earth to the Universe (FETTU) the FETTU programme. We present some would know much less about such exotic project is an exhibition of astronomical of the early observations and findings on cosmic phenomena as black holes, plan- images that showcases the most dramatic the tactile/Braille FETTU exhibit.

• Exploring the Invisible Universe • CAPjournal, No. 8 June 2010 • Page 15 Figure 1. Left: The tactile exhibit in Washington, DC. Credit: James Timony. Middle: Professor Chris DePree (left) of Agnes Scott College, discusses an exhibit image with Lafayette Wood (right), former Center for the Visually Impaired (CVI) client and member of the CVI Alumni Club. Right: CVI staff member and current CVI youth at the tactile exhibit in Atlanta. Credit: Liz Hayes.

Exhibit design and the visually impaired community and infor- For each of the exhibit locations, supple- dissemination mal education providers. These activities mentary content is provided to the com- present fundamental concepts of modern munity, including copies of the Touch the The science content of the tactile and astronomy designed to put the FETTU Invisible Sky Braille book, audio podcasts Braille exhibit includes explanations of the images into a broader context of how the of the material from the book and the set of Sun, Eta Carinae, the Crab Nebula, the Universe is structured and evolves. educational activities. Whirlpool Galaxy and the electromagnetic spectrum. There are four 45 cm x 90 cm Multiple geographic locations and venue tilted four-legged aluminium stands (each types were targeted for the tactile/Braille Location: Perkins School for about 95 cm high), built to Las Vegas displays, including public spaces that spe- the Blind, Watertown–Boston, safety standards. The “desktop faces” of cialise in handicapped materials, schools Massachusetts the exhibit stands consist of large-print text for the blind, as well as the same public underneath a complete overlay of Braille locations that the full-size, travelling FETTU The Perkins School for the Blind hosted the for the image captions and keys, as well as exhibit reaches (Figure 3). The first tactile tactile/Braille FETTU exhibit from October specially developed textures for the images exhibit was displayed on 18 July 2009 at through December 2009. This exhibit was (Figures 1 and 2). Four copies of this tactile/ the Martin Luther King Jr. library, the main placed in the lobby of the Howe building, Braille exhibit were produced, as the print- branch of the DC Public Library (Figure 1). a towered stone structure that houses the ing technology used to create it requires The tactile/Braille FETTU exhibits have also school’s museum on the campus just out- multiple print runs of the tactile process1. been displayed at Yerkes Observatory (Wil- side Boston. The single full-time science The tactile/Braille content of this exhibit liams Bay, Wisconsin), the Center for Sci- teacher on staff at the school arranged for was adapted from the NASA-funded tactile/ ence and Industry (COSI; Columbus, Ohio), her class of advanced science students to Braille book Touch the Invisible Sky written the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired visit the display on 2 December 2009. A by Noreen Grice, Doris Daou and Simon (CVI; Atlanta, Georgia), the UMass–Boston short astronomy presentation was provided Steel, and published by Ozone Publishing campus, the Perkins School for the Blind by Megan Watzke from the Smithsonian Corp. Methodologies and material that had (Boston, Massachusetts), the University of Astrophysical Observatory. The discussion been pilot-tested at the National Federa- Arkansas at Fayetteville, the Interamerican was attended by a former student of the tion for the Blind Summer Science camp University at Bayamón (Bayamón, Puerto Perkins school, and also a current visually and at the hands-on stations at the book Rico), as well as the Eugene Francis Hall impaired Perkins faculty member. One of launch were adapted by Steel to develop of the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez the exhibit guests, a girl with low vision who accompanying educational activities for Campus (Mayagüez, Puerto Rico). reads large print, bent close to the images and remarked on their bright (high con- trast) colours and commented how pretty THE CRAB – an image in visible light taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. THE CRAB – an image in combined X-Ray and visible light, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a supernova explosion which was visible from Earth in the the visuals were. She later communicated year 1054. Originally called a nova because it seemed to be a new star, a supernova is actually As you touch this image, you can feel the outline of the visible Crab from the previous image. the death of an old star. As you touch the image, you can feel the jagged outer edge of the nebula Now move your finger towards the center of the image to feel the X-ray emission, a tilted ring of to her teacher that she “had learned that revealing the chaotic and violent of the explosion that ripped off the outer layers of a once high-energy particles surrounding a tiny point source. Two jets of high energy particles are shooting majestic star. The nebula is still expanding outwards at 1500 kilometers per second, almost outwards towards at two and eight o’clock. The source is called a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron a thousand years after the explosion occurred! star no larger than an average city, but spinning on its axis 30 times a second. As the neutron star the Sun is like 5 billion years old”. A male spins it flashes its jets towards the Earth. This pulsar is the leftover core of the original supergiant star that exploded. student, who is blind, felt through the entire exhibit and then exclaimed: “This is awe-

Tactile key some.” The teacher, however, seemed to most appreciate the panel on the electro-

Pulsar’s location magnetic spectrum that demonstrated dif- Tactile key ferent kinds of light, as it can be applied to their other science class studies such as in

Filaments of gas Jets of X-ray emission chemistry and biology.

Nebula's perimeter Nebula's perimeter The group discussed relatively straightfor-

Adapted from the book Touch the Invisible Sky published by Ozone Publishing Corp. www.ozonepublishing.net ward issues with the exhibit, such as the corners of the exhibit being too sharp for Figure 2. Braille/texture and large print/image overlays illustrating the Crab Nebula. non-sighted students (especially younger

• Exploring the Invisible Universe • CAPjournal, No. 8 June 2010 • Page 16 • Exploring the Invisible Universe • CAPjournal, No. 8 June 2010 • Page 17

which bridges another gap in learning and levels the playing field even more”. (Annie Maxwell, STARS director). Yet this is just a first step in improving the opportunities for the visually impaired community to become more involved in topics like astronomy. Additional means of accessibility such as 3D modelling of objects and processes, and improved text-to-audio awareness, as well as a better understanding of how the visually impaired community learns sci- ence, are keys to the creation of “inclusive Figure 3. Teenage students at the Perkins School for the Blind experience the tactile exhibit in December 2009. science learning” environments that will Credit: Kimberly Arcand. stimulate interest and help the community become more comfortable and confident ones) to bump into, the Braille lines being students. One of the students requested in their relationship with science (Bell et al., slightly too long, or the separation ridge “tactile” constellation maps, asking what 2009). between image panels being slightly too Orion “looked like”. Ms Maxwell also hosted small. They also discussed more difficult other groups of students with the installa- topics, such as how much the lack of visual tion, including a group of middle and high References memory affects the students’ learning, and school aged students. She guided a class how difficult it is to acquire the spatial skills of middle and high school students on a • Bell, P. et al. (eds) 2009, Learning sci- that are referenced so often in sciences tour of the exhibit, as well as an elemen- ence in informal environments: People, like astronomy. Such “given” concepts for tary group. She noted that, “Students were places and pursuits, (Washington, DC) sighted students — large physical scales, deeply engrossed in the display for the first The National Academies Press complex shapes, navigation and measure- couple of panels, however, about halfway ment — are often very challenging for those through, they grew restless and inatten- in the non- or low-sighted communities. tive.” There is extensive reading on some of Acknowledgements the panels, and they can take a long time to read for younger and/or inexperienced This material is based upon work sup- Location: Atlanta Center for Braille readers. The audio files of the mate- ported by the National Aeronautics and the Visually Impaired, Atlanta, rial that are available should help address Space Administration under proposal Georgia this, but adding a better mechanism to 08-EPO08-0068 issued through the Sci- have direct audio from the exhibit (which ence Mission Directorate. Special thanks to The Center for the Visually Impaired in was meant to be ultra portable and not Kathleen Lestition and Simon Steel of the Atlanta hosted the tactile FETTU exhibit reliant on electrical outlets) is something to Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, from mid–October through December consider. Cambridge, Mass. 2009. The tactile FETTU exhibit was located during this time in the publicly accessi- ble lobby of the CVI facility in the heart of Broader dissemination Notes downtown Atlanta. Annie Maxwell is Direc- tor of the Social Therapeutic and Recrea- The NASA-funded project at the CXC has 1 More information on the exhibit: http://www. tional Services (STARS) programme, which recently produced a set of tactile/Braille fromearthtotheuniverse.org/tactile.php 2 http://www.lighthouse.org/research/statistics-on- is an after-school programme specifically wall posters containing a subset of the vision-impairment/prevalence/#national for youth aged 6 to 21. Ms Maxwell, who same image panels as the tactile/Braille is visually impaired, commented that: “The exhibit. Two thousand sets of this texturised exhibit is a wonderful eye-opener for per- poster series have been produced, which sons with vision loss, and a great way to will enable a larger means of dissemination connect with a touch method of viewing as programme resources for the visually the Solar System.” In addition, she wrote, impaired community to further enhance the Biographies “During the school day in a regular science longevity and sustainability of the science class the panel display should work fine in outreach its present form; it would illustrate exactly Kimberly Kowal Arcand is the visu- alisation & media production coordi- what the sighted students are viewing, nator for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Ob- thus involving the visually impaired student Conclusion servatory. Along with Megan Watzke, completely in the learning process. How- she is co-chair for the IYA2009 From ever, a number of improvements could be Millions of people in the United States are Earth to the Universe Task Group. made to the exhibit including hand-held legally blind (1.3 million), have low vision Megan Watzke is the press officer for items discussed in the panels such as the (3 million) or have a degree of visual impair- NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Sun or a star, and having a review question/ ment that cannot be corrected by glasses Both she and Kim Arcand are based answer and comments section at the end.” (12 million)2. The FETTU-tactile exhibit at the Chandra X-ray Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astro- expands access for the blind and visually physics in Cambridge, Mass., USA. Chris De Pree of Agnes Scott College impaired to information about the Universe worked with a group of younger STARS by presenting these panels in public and Chris De Pree is Professor of Phys- students as part of the after-school pro- non-traditional learning settings. It “opens ics & Astronomy at Agnes Scott Col- lege and Director of Bradley Observa- gramme in early November. At this time, he a wider door to understanding and expe- tory in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. added to the exhibit two meteorite samples riencing what sighted students have been that were discussed and passed around to looking at and experiencing all along,