Group Discussion Summary
The following questions were answered in small groups. Answers were recorded and are shared below. Responses are individual opinions and may not necessarily reflect those of the entire community or other attendees.
What factors promote or inhibit museums and ISL programs’ efforts for making access and equity a high priority? What can be done to address these factors?
- Some museums and programs can be extra stimulating or overwhelming; offer quiet rooms and safe spaces for students to rest or reset for the experience.
- As we come out of the pandemic, we should spend time rebuilding our programs back with accessibility and equity in mind–we should set realistic goals and invite people with disabilities and accessibility experts to weigh in.
- Teachers and professionals often need support, but don’t know where to turn. Organizations should consider creating a portal or online network to build community and share resources.
- Regarding access, staff may have no idea where to even start or how to make change. We need to find ways to encourage knowledge, understanding, and compassion.
- Host intentional conversations on these topics, including bringing together diverse groups of people to discuss and explore how to address needs.
- Apply for grants to develop new collaborations that will expand knowledge and build upon each others’ work.
- One barrier to creating access is the lack of disabled and other underrepresented representation in leadership. Also, people from one group or one disability are often thought to speak for their entire community, forgetting that each person with a disability has unique experiences, perceptions, and preferences.
- Funders don’t always require project leaders to record and report disability data, which hinders tracking how different options help or erect barriers to people with disabilities. funders often do not require that efforts to ensure access and equity be built into budgets and deliverables.
- Programs can sometimes forget to look at intersectionality to include all people, including those with a variety of backgrounds and abilities.
- There has been research done on disability and learning—we should utilize the knowledge we have and bring it together instead of try to reinvent the wheel.
- Budgeting and funding can sometimes be messy when it comes to accommodations or accessibility, and many programs or centers don’t allocate any funds for this purpose. Programs that do have accommodation budgets can still often be limited in resources.
- It’s often assumed that change needs to be made incrementally over time, which leaves out people with disabilities in the present time.
- Development offices may not have the networks or knowledge for access related grants. There needs to be education around organizational and institutional buy-in and commitment. We need to include these efforts in the fabric of what we do, rather than address these issues piecemeal..
- Accessibility and inclusion aren’t an individual task. Promoting champions of accessibility at all levels can help bring about change faster. Informal leaders at the top, middle, and bottom can help stop the “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality.
What new (undeveloped) or existing resources might help ISL programs that are interested in increasing accessibility features of on-site programming? What can be done to further develop and promote these resources?
- Potential new online technology in the future may change or improve navigation and also extend the wayfinding experience. Some examples may include phone usage near field communication tags or QR codes with audible/verbal descriptions. A question to consider: How can we network and share what cutting edge organizations are doing in this field?
- Only some people with vision loss use braille; therefore, additional modes are needed such as audio interfaces or electronic versions of print materials.
- How do we find and vet interpreters to ensure that their interpreting is correct and accurate, especially when they are new to the field and not already having existing and trusted vendors? Resources in this area would be helpful for programs that are just getting started.
- The community should encourage the National Informal STEM Education Network (NISE) to help develop and share tools that can make programs more inclusive and accessible.
- Organizations should consider building community through disability consumer groups, such as the National Association of the Deaf, American Council of the Blind, and the deaf-blind community, to help develop accessibility resources.
- From a technology and STEM perspective, it would be interesting to be able to share a broader understanding with youth about how many different types of pathways and career opportunities exist in the tech field, not just limited to coding. There are many undiscovered opportunities for students who don’t believe code is for them.
- We can train researchers to interact and engage with the public. The NSF Portal to the Public training could be more accessible. The content, activities, and how they’re disseminated is predicated on ability. The content is excellent but it needs improvement by addressing accessibility and other disability issues.
- In volunteer programs, there is a lack of awareness of accessibility; an improved training experience that embeds access issues would help.
- Encourage more peer mentoring between participants from different sized institutions because there is much that participants from different size institutions can offer each other.
- It would be desirable to develop some sort of clearinghouse of resources and financial resources for organizations that want to improve accessibility.
- Further develop language expectations around disability to help organizations create guides and use preferred terms—disability is not a bad word.
- Programs should explore the use of haptic technology to create more engaging STEM experiences for blind individuals.
- Programs may benefit from the development and dissemination of templates for accessible websites.
- Planetariums should explore the use of 3D printing technology and tactile models.
- It is important to teach both “hard science” and “soft science,” which includes socio-emotional learning, team building, personal connections, and self-advocacy.
- Establish more frameworks for collaborating with peers, such as the AccessISL Community of Practice, and additional workshops and conferences dedicated to increasing access.
- Further identify and promote tools that help specific populations, such as options for visual schedules, digital social narratives, etc.
- Create space and allowing for community voices to “be in the room” as we develop ISL, as well as creating a framework for how to create community advisory committees that can share strategies and lessons learned.
- Programs can create sensory kits to pass out to guests—with fidgets, headphones, and other options as needed.
What are other ways that disability communities are engaged in ensuring access to informal science education? What do museums, science centers, summer camps, and other informal STEM learning programs need to do and what resources would be helpful?
- Informal STEM learning programs need to offer multiple program options in diverse settings. These programs should also serve a wide variety of needs. A lot of STEM learning programs only cater to a few communities and don’t consider that different people need different accommodations to truly experience a program’s full potential.
- Develop the ability to seamlessly transition from virtual programming back to in-person. However, accessible online programs should still be kept open and operable. These online programs could be used as a complementary or primary method of engagement for different individuals.
- Include targeted marketing to specific communities. Certain communities may never know an opportunity to access certain informal science education exists because marketing did not include their community.
- Add more assistive technology vendors that offer a wide variety of products and services.
- Further enhance opportunities to connect to disabled mentors and other individuals who have a similar disability. This fosters a sense of inclusion and confidence. Meet with respective colleagues in different fields and learn what others are doing. Observe different programs and opportunities to network.
- Implement interactive models that provide people with a way to engage in order toy promote learning and excitement. Some examples would be sensory tables, 3D printed objects, hands-on materials, etc. A key aspect would be customizable programming or features to attract people with disabilities, adapt to their requests, etc. The key is being flexible.
- Remember to include black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in intended marketing and program implementation.
- Find ways to infuse disability justice into their work. This would shed a light on the injustices that occur in the disabled communities and help raise a lot of awareness about the people working on helping solve these problems.
- Set aside some days and events for specific disability-related organizations and schools, as this would help ensure that the disabled communities have equal access and promotions. The addition of autism awareness days would be a great start.
- Presume competence and integrate that presumption into a part of your culture.
- Promote consistent engagement with disability communities. Many people with disabilities are not involved for a long time due to many organizations not reaching out. This begins by starting a two-way relationship where the disable community shows up for an organization’s event. Likewise, organizations put an effort to market and create an event that caters to the respective communities. The ability to secure funding. This would be conducted by having relationships ahead of time, building into every grant, and piloting things through demonstration.
- A good resource is the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), which is underutilized in helping get access to folks who can advise.
- When developing programs, keep in mind how disabled people view themselves. Stress the importance of being proactive rather than being reactive. Answer the question of how we develop our programming to take into consideration all our different users and their respective needs: POC, type of disability, type of interactions. The key is to ensure that the disability community knows you thought of them in the planning and design process of program development.