Volcano Watch: Aloha to the University of Hawaii s newest geology professor hawaiitribune-herald.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hawaiitribune-herald.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lis Gallant has spent the past two and a half years at the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on the Big Island as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow and is joining the Department of Geology at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo as an assistant professor.
Ratajeski met with Clark to discuss how he could support her and find out more about how she learns best. The professor realized there were few ready-made tactile resources for blind students studying geosciences and took matters into his own hands creating models and tactile course materials that Clark could feel with her fingertips.
After Clark graduated in 2017, Ratajeski continued that work creating a digital repository of tactile graphics for other students and professors to print out and use in their classes.
Tactile Graphics
Learning through touch is very important to Clark, now 25, who started learning Braille when she was 5 and became almost completely blind when she was a teenager. Throughout her K-12 education, a staff member created tactile graphics for Clark with diagrams and pictures annotated in Braille. She didn t find that same type of support in higher education.
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 13, 2021) For Sydney Clark, every day presents challenges. She was born with a genetic condition that resulted in vision loss over time.
By the time she was a teenager, she was almost completely blind.
“Accessibility is always an issue,” Clark said. “I ve never had an experience where accessibility wasn t an issue.
But Clark never allowed her disability to stop her from achieving her goals. And one of those goals was to attend the University of Kentucky.
The transition from high school to college can be challenging for any new student, but when Clark came to UK as a freshman in 2014, the Frankfort, Kentucky, native found herself facing more challenges than she was used to.