Noreen Grice is a treasure.
A few years ago, she was running the planetarium show in a Boston planetarium when a group of blind kids came in to the theater. After the show was over, she asked them what they thought about it, and they said it "stunk".
Well, of course. But what can you do?
I suspect most of us would just feel badly about it and move on. But not Noreen. What she did was create a book about astronomy for the blind. Called Touch the Universe, it had images from Hubble Space Telescope overlaid with vacuum-formed plastic sheets that created an actual 3D version of the image, so that blind people could feel what the object looked like.
Amazing.
And now she has created her fifth book in the series, Touch the Invisible Sky (available soon from Ozone Publishing). It has images from Hubble, the Spitzer (infrared) Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
I have seen children use Noreen’s books before, and the look on their faces when they can actually feel the stripes on Jupiter is… well, it’s incredible. What Noreen has done is nothing less than open the door on astronomy for an entire segment of the population that had been excluded. She’s a hero.
Watch this embedded video (click on it to start it) to get a taste of what this incredible woman is about (if it doesn’t play, try the version at the Newswise or the Hubble press release).
I can’t help but think of the central irony of this book: it’s created for people who are visually impaired, but it shows images from the invisible part of the electromagnetic spectrum: infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays… light that none of us can see. In X-rays, we are all of us blind. We need very fancy and expensive telescopes to be able to detect this form of light from astronomical objects at all.
It’s a message I think we should all be reminded of every now and again.
I had nothing at all to do with this book, but I’ve met Noreen a few times, and for some silly reason that makes me all sorts of proud. Several of my friends were involved in this and Noreen’s other projects as well, so I would like to thank Simon Steele, Doris Daou, Skip Barker (I remember talking to Skip about the first book, and he said he had to help her do this, and I was never prouder of him), Steve Maran, Ray Villard, and Lynn Cominsky for their work with Noreen.
Good on all of you.
Update: Just a few minutes after I posted this, the (Hubble) Space Telescope Science Institute posted a press release about it.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Blind or not, that book sounds like a great thing for everyone. Even for kids with sight, I think it would really spur interest in space through this sort of tactile approach.
That’s a pretty awesome story, and thanks for sharing it.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:37 am
That is indeed awesome, Phil! Thanks for sharing that.
~David D.G.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I have given a number of talks about disability. I often use the example of an astronomer who has to use a telescope to see what he or she wants to look at. That is, they are using a machine to help them do something they are incabable of doing themselves. They are unable to see dim, far-away objects without assistance of these machines. I underscore the similarity of relying on a telescope to relying on glasses or a wheelchair. They are machines that help us do things we could not do otherwise. However, one set of people is considered disabled while the other is not even though both sets of people have to rely on the machines to help them do what they cannot do without assistance. So, disability isn’t necessarily a unique class or condition in that we are ALL disabled in one manner or another.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:45 am
WOW!!!
What else can you say about something this cool.
WOW!!!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:48 am
I’m so glad you shared this. What a great story. Thanks!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:52 am
What a great idea - I’m glad she was able to execute it!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Awesomeness!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Wow, what a wonderful story! Bravo Noreen!
January 15th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
What a lovely idea!
January 15th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
This kind of insight Noreen Grice has I wish I’d had when I was teaching…truly an example of a born teacher.
We had a photography teacher who worked in the Regional Occupation School of our high school’s technical training program who was attempting to get his regular state teaching credential. He developed a program for blind folks to use standard SLR’s to take pictures as his project to complete his coursework for the credential program. It had limited practical success at our school, since we had only one visually impaired kid in the student body of 1200 and she wasn’t in the ROP program; but the program was adapted for students at his college (where he introduced it) and was a hit with those older students. I remember thinking at the time that I thought it was a crazy idea…
January 15th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Plognark already used the exact same word I was about to!
January 15th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I had the pleasure of meeting Noreen at the last Communicating Astronomy with the Public conference in Athens in Oct. 2007: There not only the new book could be previewed (and pretouched), she also gave a most amazing talk on how to do star parties for the visually impaired! They have everybody out in the open where a camera on a telescope captures an image of a deep sky object. This is then image-processed to increase contrast and the resulting image is printed onto so-called swell-ink paper that transforms brightness into relieff. Only minutes after the image is taken it can already be touched, providing a unique near-live experience. A fantastic idea!
January 15th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
[…] Phil over at Bad Astronomy has definitive coverage. […]
January 15th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
That is awesome. I truly admire people that are willing to produce important material for the disabled community, as my youngest daughter has disabilities. (Down syndrome and Cerebral Palsy.) Thanks for that Phil.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:44 am
Hey, Phil, that’s seriously cool.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
This story certainly touched me! Had to blog about it. Thanks, Phil!
January 16th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
This made me go all misty-eyed. Beautiful!
January 17th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I was feeling so depressed after reading that Huckleber… er… Huckabee post.
This article just made my day … hell, it made my month. How wonderful!
January 17th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
[…] [Via the Bad Astronomer] […]
January 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Thanks for giving some details about the story behind the book. I passed your blog by chance, but it strenghtend my will to buy this book for a sightless friend of mine. He´s pretty interested in astronomic issues, just as I am. I´m really looking forward to discuss the pictures with him. I hope they send it to germany!
January 19th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Hmm. Would printing a tactile “image” from a telescope digital camera picture suit sighted observers, too? After all, outside at night, it’s -dark-.
January 24th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I swear that I shed a tear when I read Phil’s entry. To be able to hold the sky in my eyes (as feeble as they are) is something i have taken for granted my entire life. May the blind yet see…