TITLE:
ATMK: A Monera Kingdom Atlas for Presenting Cell Morphology and Biotechnology for Visually Impaired Students
AUTHORS:
Eloah Lyrio, Cristina Delou, Lourena Marinho, Helena Carla Castro
KEYWORDS:
Inclusive Education; Tactile Material; Visually Impaired; Blindness; Biology; Biotechnology
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.5 No.4,
March
19,
2014
ABSTRACT: The teaching and learning process for
approaching the scientific knowledge should allow the inclusion of all students
especially those with blindness or visual impairment. In this work we produced
a didactical material about Monera kingdom to allow the knowledge accessibility
by all students including those with blindness or visual impairments. The
Monera kingdom theme was selected due to its complexity and variety of examples
about cellular morphology that also allow the approach of other topics such as
biotechnology. Thus we produced an Atlas about bacterial morphology using paper
with different textures to provide a tactile distinction to the student with
visual impairment. The Atlas development involved four steps including: a) the
Atlas preparation, b) in locus test
with students with visual impairment, c) morphologies structural evaluation (2D
to 3D) using modeling clay and d) analysis about student’s opinion through an
interview. The Atlas of the Monera Kingdom was produced and we observed that it
had a stimulatory effect on blind and visually impaired students. The Atlas
allowed the understanding of the microorganism’s morphology with full content
access for these students and also with the possibility of approaching
biotechnology topics such as microorganisms and its biotechnological potential.
These conclusions were reinforced by observing the three-dimensional analysis
and evaluation of the questionnaire responses that pointed for the importance
of this material for the public with special needs.