Penn State Researchers Seek to Enhance Chemistry Lab Experience for Visually Impaired Students

19 July 2005—A team of researchers led by Tom Mallouk, professor of chemistry and physics at Penn State, has received a $300,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation to develop tools and techniques to be used by blind or visually impaired students in high-school-level chemistry courses. The team aims to adapt the curriculum currently used at the Indiana School for the Blind by combining speech software with portable bar-code readers and other laboratory tools to allow blind and visually impaired students to carry out general-chemistry laboratory experiments without the aid of sighted assistants.

The goal of the research is to assess whether independent laboratory experiences—currently unavailable to blind students—will better develop their skills, raise the expectations of students and educators alike, and build confidence and a passion for scientific experimentation. Researchers hope that independent-learning experiences, which are a key factor in career choices made by sighted students, will encourage blind and visually impaired students to consider careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Mallouk’s collaborators include Andrew Greenberg, a postdoctoral fellow and K-12 educational outreach coordinator for the Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science; Cary A. Supalo, a Penn State graduate student in chemistry; Alan H. Roth, a science teacher at the Indiana School for the Blind; and H. David Wohlers, a chemistry professor at Truman State University. Supalo and Wohlers, who both are blind, will have primary responsibility for the development and preliminary testing of new tools and techniques. While the initial tools will be developed for the general-chemistry laboratory, they may be extended in the future to other curricula—such as organic, physical, and analytical chemistry—and to other scientific disciplines.

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