Science Camp Day 2

I am writing in the morning of the second day of Science Camp at Camp Tuhsmeheta. Yesterday, the campers arrived in the afternoon. We made introductions and talked about science concepts and our attitudes towards science. We are doing a camp around ecology. Most of the campers want to start fires and want to know more about fire. This is really funny to me.

A goal of this camp is to bring together adults from the regular and special education communities to reduce barriers to the participation in science classes for blind students. So far this is going splendidly. Cranbrook Institute will be here this morning to make a presentation to the campers about water. Mick Isaacson from Independence Science LLc (www.independencescience.com) is developing accessible software for the Labquest test equipment used in many college and high school classrooms. It is amazing to be able to record, chart and ultimately manipulate data on accessible equipment. The software is in alpha test mode at this point, so wefeel priviledged to have input into groundbreaking technology.

We have a veteran science teacher who is leading the campers and who has, along with a former student of hers, has designed the curriculum for the week. They have done a marvelous job. We will study lake, stream and wetland and forest environments. We will take measurements, record the measurements and compile data. We are attempting to, give the campers an overview of how science is done. We have discussed the ideas of competing viewpoints and that some scientists propose ideas and others challlenge those ideas. We haved discussed how politics and culture effect these debates.

This science camp is a collaboration between the National Federation of the Blind of Michigan (nfbmi.org nfb.org)and Opportunities Unlimited for the Blind, Inc (oub.org). NFBMI is paying OUB to host the camp. NFBMI's role is content development. OUB has done a splendid job with facilities and staffing. More later.