No Stopping Jordan
Future scientist Jordan Richardson, who is currently a student using ILAB tools in his honors chemistry course at Blaine High School, was recently profiled in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Principal of Thika High School for the Blind in Kenya Learns about ILAB
Alfred Kamau met with Cary Supalo on April 15, 2008 to learn more about ILAB tools for chemistry and physics. Mr. Kamau is the Principal of Thika High School for the Blind, Thika, Kenya. He had been invited by Dr. Lillian A. Rankel, a chemistry teacher at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, NJ, to visit the USA to learn more about educational services for blind high school students. Mr. Kamau spent time shadowing a blind high school senior at Hopewell Valley Central High School for several days during his visit. Mr. Kamau was very interested in learning how blind students do chemistry and physics in high school because blind children in Kenya are not allowed by the government to take chemistry and physics. While Cary was visiting Hopewell, he showed Alfred many ILAB tools and then observed a blind student doing an AP physics lab using some ILAB tools interfaced to a computer with a screen reader. 
Dr. Rankel showed Mr. Kamau many examples of tactile and adapted laboratory equipment used by her blind student during AP chemistry classes last year.
The photo shows Cary Supalo teaching Alfred Kamau how to use a talking stop watch timer developed by ILAB.
Thika School for the Blind can be found at on the web at: http://thikablind.org.
Pioneers
A brief description of Cary's work on the ILAB project appeared on the Newsmakers page of Science, vol. 318, p. 1533 (December 3, 2007). Click here to read the story.
About ILAB
Articles about the ILAB project have been published in the May 2007 issue of the Braille Monitor and in the October 9, 2007 issue of Penn State Live.
Read an article from the Daily Collegian about the October 2007 ILAB workshop.
ILAB in Kenya
Fifteen student members of the Model World Health Organization Club (WHO Club) from Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, NJ traveled to Kenya. One of the students in the group, Trevor Saunders, is blind and has been working with the ILAB Team at Penn State to develop tools so that blind students can independently do laboratory work. The WHO Club students were accompanied by two science teachers from the high school, Mr. David Angwenyi (who grew up in Kenya) and Dr. Lillian Rankel (an ILAB Team member). On the second day in Kenya, the students visited the Thika High School for the Blind outside of Nairobi. Trevor Saunders, a blind high school student from Hopewell, showed students at Thika the ILAB and Vernier Scientific probe tools he uses to do chemistry labs in AP Chemistry. Trevor also showed the blind students his laptop computer with JAWS screen reader that allows him to hear what is on his computer screen and thereby access the Internet and Microsoft Office software. Blind students examined the ILAB tools and wanted to purchase some. The Thika blind students then put on a short play for us that we all enjoyed. Many email addresses were exchanged between our students and the Thika students during our visit.
ILAB Tools Make a Difference for Students at the NFB Youth Slam
The recent NFB Youth Slam brought the ILAB tools to 200 high school students who are blind or low vision and are interested in science. Students had hands-on use of the tools at the ILAB exhibit table, and students in the Chemistry track used them to do experiments on fuel cells and the synthesis/separation of biodiesel from vegetable oil in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. An article in the Baltimore Sun describes some of these laboratory experiences, and also gives ILAB team member David Wohlers' perspective on his career in science.
Trevor Saunders in Chemistry Olympiad News Archive
ILAB Tools Bring Independence to Blind Students in Science Classrooms
Cary Supalo, Lillian Rankel, and other members of the ILAB team were featured in an article in Chemical and Engineering News (July 23, 2007, pp. 36-39) for their work in bringing adaptive tools and techniques to mainstream high school science classrooms. The online version of this article contains links to other stories on awareness and overcoming disabilities in science education, as well as an interesting photo essay on Cary's visit with C&EN reporter Linda Wang to Hopewell Valley Central High School.
Trevor Saunders was the first blind student to ever take part in the National Chemistry Olympiad at Rider University on April 29, 2007. He and another student qualified by taking a multiple choice chemistry exam and obtaining higher scores than the other 26 AP Chemistry students at Hopewell Valley High School in Pennington, NJ. The Olympiad at Rider consisted of three parts. The first part of the exam was multiple choice, the second part was long essay or calculation type questions and the third part was a laboratory practical exam. Trev's Teacher of the Blind, Marilyn Winograd, read the exam and he dictated the answers to his teacher so she could write the chemistry answers on the forms.
In the lab exam, students were given some chemistry equipment and two experiments to design and run with the given equipment and chemicals supplied in vials. Again Ms. Winograd read the experimental goals and Trevor felt the lab bench surface with his hands to locate the position of the beakers, test tubes, vials, graduated cylinders and droppers. Trevor had his ILAB (Independent Laboratory Access for the Blind) tools with him. The tools interface to his laptop computer and his JAWS screen reader can, for example, audibly say the mass of an object on his balance when weighing chemicals or objects. Trevor manipulated all the chemicals himself using a dropper or notched barrel syringe. His teacher read graduated cylinders to tell Trevor the volume of the liquid. When Trev mixed some chemicals together, he asked his Teacher of the Blind how the solutions looked after mixing together.
We congratulate Trevor for his outstanding success as a Chemistry student. The ILAB team is working to make experiences like the Chemistry Olympiad more accessible to all students who are blind or visually impaired.
Seeing Chemistry Differently, from the Penn State Daily Collegian, September 15, 2005.
JAWS in the Chemistry Lab from the Freedom Scientific, Newsletter, September-October, 2005.
Blind students do hands-on work in Central High physics lab, from the Hopewell Valley News September 7, 2006.