I'll try to answer this also, but I think we have something to
contribute to this researcher.
----- Forwarded message begins here -----
From: PROF NORM COOMBS <NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu>
To: easi-sem@nas.isc.rit.edu
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 13:21:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Please Can Anyone Help???
Below is mail requesting help. If anyone on this list can help, would you
please do 2 things:
1 write Joe with an answer and 2 drop a note to this list so we can know it is
being answered.
Norman Coombs nrcgsh@rit.edu
From: IN%"jbreskin@foresnt.com" "Joe Breskin" 27-FEB-1996 13:09:41.44
To: IN%"nrcgsh@ritvax.isc.rit.edu"
CC:
Subj: Re: request for help
Friday, I came up with a question none of us who are working on the project
(all sighted) had a good answer for.
It seems important even necessary to answer it because I don't know where to
start in presenting the material I am developing to teach scientific process
and modeling.
My concern, is as follows:
I believe that there are engineers and scientists, who are blind, and have
been blind or had severe visual disability since birth,
and yet understand trigonometry, and mechanical and mechanistic
relationships, such as the equations used in electrical engineering,
or the precession equations which describe the "seasonal tilting" of the
earth's rotational axis. I am looking for information on HOW blind people
acquire the ability to understand and manipulate such relationships.
I do not know this to be true, I presume it to be true.
I need a path to info on how blind students learn geometry & find meaning in
spatial and geometrical relationships. I am assuming that I can teach maps
as abstractions, as reductions of the actual multidimensional reality to a
few selected dimensions, at a controlled scale and level of detail.
In a nutshell: if you are blind, can you tell me how you acquired these
concepts? If not, do you know someone who can?
The science education part of the deliverable for the project involves a
cursory inventory and analysis of the campus' relationship to the drainage
basin in which it is located.
The key connector between the school and its surroundings, at the
geographical scale I wish to model, is the water that flows through and off
the school site. The concept of a "system" (composed of precipitation and
its relationship to soil, topography, and land cover) is developed, through
consideration of recent floods in the area, and the conditions that result
in flooding. Through a series of classroom experiments, an understanding of
the causes of local and seasonal variations in the performance of the
"system" (vis a vis infiltration and runoff) are developed. The various
component processes (infiltration, interception by land cover,
evapotranspiration, etc.) are introduced one at a time.
The basic "physical" tool to provide a model with a physical incarnation,
that effectively and accurately models the soil and its performance
(infiltration / transmissivity), or the performance of leaves in the canopy,
or the grass on the football field, or even the asphalt in the parking lot
(interception) is a sponge.
The sponge model works well at a variety of scales, and allows the
demonstration of many concepts in a very tactile, physical way. Each
process is characterized and a mathematical model of each process is
developed. A larger model of the entire system is gradually developed to
include the all processes (previously developed and modeled) which
contribute to system performance.
Project Summary
Overview
The project operates on 2 levels: Outer Level and Inner Level
at the "outer" level, it provides an introduction to both the principals of
science and scientific investigation, and to the fundamental activities of
scientific research, to high-school students. At this level, it's purpose
is to evaluate the effectiveness of using a single project, in which the
students work in teams and perform the actual roles and many of the
day-to-day activities of teams of scientists, as a means to teach the
principles of scientific endeavor and the language of environmental science.
This "outer" project is composed of 4 segments: pre test, training, post
test and evaluation. The students participate in this level as experimental
subjects, at a group level.
At the Inner Level, (the project within a project (the part of the project
to be performed by the students)) is based on development of a set of
hypothetical relationships, and models are developed which describe several
aspects of the performance of a large & complex system (a watershed in flood).
Are you aware of a rich body of work on this subject?
If the answer to that question is YES, is any of this available on line?
If you know the answer to the first or second questions (this assumes there
is such a body of info, and that you know about it) could you please:
1. Send the peoples' email addresses to me
2. Forward this message to them?
>
Joe Breskin
jbreskin@foresnt.com
Foresight Science & Technology
(360) 385 9560 voice
(360) 385 9598 fax
Return-path: <jbreskin@foresnt.com>
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Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 10:16:17 -0800
From: Joe Breskin <jbreskin@foresnt.com>
Subject: Re: request for help
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Lloyd Rasmussen
Senior Staff Engineer
National Library Service f/t Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress 202-707-0535
lras@loc.gov
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