Outreach: Creation of blind-accessible planetarium show

Chris has been awarded public engagement grants from STFC and the Royal Astronomical Society to make a planetarium show and educational resources that are accessible to blind and vision impaired children. This build on a pilot project done last year at the British Science Festival in collaboration with blind astronomer Dr Nic Bonne. Uniquely, the planetarium show will use sounds and narration as the main methods of communication, with visuals acting as a secondary mode of communication. When COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed we will regularly visit our partner schools to also co-develop BVI-accessible classroom based activities around the subject of astronomy that use both sounds and tactile models. Here you can listen to a little taster of the soundtrack below and see a photograph of some of the tactile models.

A montage of astronomical pictures and photographs of the 3D "tactile" versions of these created with a 3D printer.
The 3D models showcased in this montage were created by Nicolas Bonne for A Dark Tour of the Universe, an astronomy show for the blind and visually impaired. Image Credit: ESO/M. Zamani, Nicolas Bonne, S. Brunier, TRAPPIST/ E. Jehin, EHT Collaboration, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Millennium Simulation Project, NASA/ Goddard/ SDO, WMAP Science Team