Free to ALL planetariums!
The Night Sky In Your Hands
Free to ALL planetariums!
Free to ALL planetariums!
Free to ALL planetariums!
The team at BVI Astronomy are excited to present
The Night Sky In Your Hands
A tactile and sensory journey through the night sky.
The Space Travel Dome has partnered with a team of over a dozen blind and low vision community members, other planetarium professionals, and vision support experts to bring these exciting Access BVI tools to you for FREE.
“The Night Sky in Your Hands” is a show created specifically for blind, visually impaired, and low vision guests.
Using a traditional presenter led planetarium format, pedagogical, and story-based narration, the stars are brought down from the ceiling and into the hands of the participants.
Participants use a simple and easy to follow, tactile sky guide, visitors are led through a 25– 30 minute journey through prominent constellations, asterisms, and celestial objects of the night sky. In addition to the tactile sky guides, sonifications of space, and even the smells of space are employed.
Dr. Jennifer Lauxman Lutin designed and produced an affordable, 2D, tactile sky guide to meet the needs of this immersive sensory experience. Unlike 3D hemispheres, these are inexpensive and easy to produce in large number.
All templates and directions are included in the download files. Additionally, there are links to resources for building or commissioning tactile tools in the Q&A guide.
Our "tactile sky guides" were inspired by and developed as an affordable alternative to the beautiful 3D hemispheres designed for the 2009 show, "The Sky In Your Hands" at the Hemisfèric, Valencia’s Arts and Sciences City planetarium, which had been generously shared with the world without cost for use under Creative Commons License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Our first tactile sky guide follows the same path of astronomical objects used in the original show. In the download we include a newly updated translation and re-imagined script with additional narrative directions to lead guests in navigating from object to object on the guide. The script is a concise template for you build your show upon, adding background music, and sonifications of the mentioned objects. Any presenter is welcome to modify the included narratives for their presenting style and target audience. A major change is no longer requiring 7.1 surround speaker system as this version does not include the use of tones and sounds in spatial placement in the theater. This was a conscious decision to make this sensory immersive experience approachable by a wider range of planetariums and educational facilities.
We will be releasing a second Tactile Sky Guide for use with a Winter Hexagon script later this year!
This method of reproducing well defined, tactile prints is a powerful and versatile new solution. With reproductions costing less than a few dollars each, this makes Access BVI shows affordable and attainable for any organization.
Our tactile sky guides have been tested by our Blind and Visually Impaired Guidance Team to insure that they provide clear and easy access to astronomy for the BVI community. Best practices and FAQ will be in the accompanying guide.
During the period of lock down in the recent pandemic many of us realized what it was like to not be able to freely access things we wanted to participate in. This created fertile ground for rising awareness and problem solving in many facets of accessibility and equity.
The team at BVI Astronomy needed to be sure that we were finding answers to questions we didn’t even know to ask! To be sure we have the best practices, we have partnered with a team of over a dozen blind and low vision community members, other planetarium professionals, and vision support experts.
All the material for the show and a guide to best practices for your facility hosting an accessible astronomy event will be made available for free in March 2023.
Every one of the members of this team volunteered their time, knowledge, and resources to make this happen.
The design team for this project includes volunteers from three planetariums, members of the blind, visually impaired, and low vision communities, BVI Support services and educators, the Florida School for the Blind, and Duval County School BVI support, and more.
We will have a complete list of credits here in March 2023!
We want to give a special acknowledgement to both Southeastern Planetarium Association and Pacific Planetarium Association for the generous award of Mini-Grants to further develop this program.
Additionally, special thanks to the Bryan-Gooding Planetarium and the Lohman Planetarium.
The plans for many useful free BVI access to astronomy tools are available right now. The barrier for most institutions can be accessing them as they require fabrication with specialist tools such as 3D printers, thermoform printers, sell paper fusers, braille presses, etc.
BVI Astronomy will be offering a limited number of these amazing tools fabricated for you as a reasonable price for their fabrication and delivery.
All materials are free to download and use. If you use the materials for a public performance, please fill out the accompanying form. Thank you.
Jen Lauxman Lutin, Director JLutin@SpaceTravelDome.com 904 708 7997
Copyright © 2023 BVI Astronomy - All Rights Reserved.
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