Approaching Colors and Shapes in a Multisensory Way: Texturized Materials for Inclusive Astronomy Education

Accessible education is crucial for equal opportunities, however visually impaired people face challenges in subjects such as astronomy due to lack of adapted material. The problem can be overcome by creating special filters and tactile images making astronomy education inclusive and providing an environment where everyone feels represented.

To teach astronomy for visually impaired people is necessary to create special filters. For instance, we can adapt images from space missions and made them tactile, creating textures with low-cost materials such as beads, ropes, fabrics, sandpapers,etc, and then using thermoform plaques in order to duplicate the material texturized.
The objective of this work is to create an inclusive approach to astronomy education through the production of adapted images using thermoform plaques. All produced material is distributed to Brazilian schools. Then, this proposal has a social objective by creating a teaching environment where all people, including visually impaired, feel part of the same society, often segregated.
In this work, we present images of different celestial objects observed in visible and other wavelengths – invisible to the eyes – in order to highlight the differences in each spectral band and show the beauty of the universe in an accessible way.