Making Science Accessible to Students with Visual Impairments: Insulation-Materials Investigation

Science education could be made more accessible to students with visual impairments through collaboration and specific adaptation in both the science classrooms and laboratories. For example, by providing simple adaptations or doing some essential modifications, students can gain experience with measuring, balancing, and weighing a variety of materials. Unfortunately, many concepts in science have been found inaccessible to students with visual impairment because of the use of figures, equations, and graphs. An activity was designed to teach the insulation properties of different materials to students who are blind or visually impaired. The activity uses simple, economical, and easily accessible everyday materials to familiarize students with the concepts of heat transfer and insulating properties and the importance of thermal-insulation materials.