National Science Foundation Grant Brings JAWS Access to the Chemistry Lab

Access to a good education is imperative for blind students and now Freedom Scientific is making the tools used in chemistry classes more accessible, thanks to JAWS and a National Science Foundation grant.

With funding from the National Science Foundation Research in Disabilities Education (NSF-RDE), a JAWS scripting initiative has been launched to develop scripts for a software interface known as Logger Pro 3.3.

Logger Pro 3.3 is a software interface developed by the Vernier Software and Technology Company in Beaverton, Oregon. This application is used to collect lab data from a device called a Lab Pro, which can be interfaced via USB to a PC and then connected to a variety of laboratory probes, including a pH meter, thermometer, conductivity detector, oxygen detector and other devices. Logger Pro collects the data from the Lab Pro in a Cartesian graphical representation or a data table, which can be configured by each individual user.

Using the JAWS scripts, the student can read the rows and columns of data tables. The tables are fully accessible with speech or a refreshable Braille display. In addition, by performing a simple keystroke, the student can hear what probes are currently connected to the Lab Pro and are collecting data. Logger Pro can also be used with an Ohaus balance, a device for measuring different units of weight, enabling the student using JAWS to have a “talking balance.”

The initiative to develop JAWS scripts for Logger Pro 3.3 is part of a project titled, “Tools and Techniques to Enhance a Blind Student’s Participation in High School Level and General Chemistry Laboratory Classes.” 

“It is the hope of this project to give blind and visually impaired students the tools to more directly interact with data acquisition in the laboratory,” said Cary Supalo, a blind graduate student at Pennsylvania State University who has been involved with the development of the scripts. “We hope these tools will change the traditional passive role of a blind student’s participation in a laboratory to a more active role. We hope that by giving blind students more access to their own data acquisition, it will spark more interest by the blindness community to seek career paths in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.”

The Vernier product line is available in the majority of high school chemistry laboratories across the country. These interfaces are also used in the general chemistry setting at the college level. JAWS users who are enrolled in chemistry classes should ask their laboratory course coordinators about the Vernier product line, and specifically Logger Pro 3.3.

Future Logger Pro upgrades are forthcoming, and JAWS scripts will be created for these future versions. For more information about this research project or about the JAWS scripting for Logger Pro 3.3, please contact Cary Supalo at cary@chem.psu.edu .