ETI logo: A white circle. Inside the circle in black lowercase cursive it reads, eti.
A black circle. Inside is the Mona Minkara logo in white. It is Two M’s with one super imposed onto another.
Accessible STEM Curriculum for the Blind
Implemented in Lebanon. In 2017 and 2018, I partnered with ETI to create a one-of-a-kind completely accessible science curriculum for both blind and sighted youth. The curriculum is unique, accessible, based on a constructivist educational approach, and it can be replicated with cheap and easily found household items.
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Empowerment Through Integration
Empowerment Through Integration (ETI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to developing a more inclusive society through empowering youth with disabilities individually and globally transforming social and cultural stigmas against disability.
Keep Reading
Empowerment Through Integration
Empowerment Through Integration (ETI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to developing a more inclusive society through empowering youth with disabilities individually and globally transforming social and cultural stigmas against disability.
ETI has been addressing issues associated with social inequalities, particularly associated with the historical exclusion of individuals with disabilities for the past 10 years, through direct services for blind youth, families and the general community in Lebanon, and, more recently, via online and in-person inclusion trainings that continue to address and transform the exclusion and stigmas associated with individuals with disabilities around the globe.
If you would like to know more about ETI’s inclusion programs and trainings or about ways you can contribute to their work, check out their website www.etivision.org and follow them on social media at @etivision.
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Accessible STEM Curriculum for the Blind
Implemented in Lebanon. In 2017 and 2018, I partnered with ETI to create a one-of-a-kind completely accessible science curriculum for both blind and sighted youth. The curriculum is unique, accessible, based on a constructivist educational approach, and it can be replicated with cheap and easily found household items.
I designed this STEM curriculum to support the teaching of basic scientific concepts to individuals with visual impairments from 6 to 27 years old who attended ETI’s inclusive summer program in Lebanon.
This curriculum allows blind youth to better comprehend concepts associated with STEM, to perceive themselves as capable of executing scientific exploration and experiments, in both independent and collaborative ways, and increase their interest and motivation to pursue careers in the field of STEM. For more information, contact me at m.minkara@northeastern.edu
In the summer of 2017, I had the pleasure to collaborate with ETI and travel to Lebanon to teach my STEM curriculum to blind and sighted students. A curriculum designed with accessibility in mind, turning small science experiments, such as traditional baking soda volcano and “building-your-own-stethoscope”, into tactile-based ones everyone can enjoy with or without sight.
In this program, I taught more than 100 children from diverse religious and national backgrounds (including Syrian and Palestinian refugees and Lebanese students).
The use of cheap household materials served to motivate them to replicate experiments at home as well as to continue to create their own scientific experiments.
It was such an invaluable experience for all involved and I am grateful for having had this opportunity to support the inclusion of blind youth in science.
Gallery
A young student in a camo t-shirt is assembling a clear tube to the bottom of a funnel. A hand to their side is offering them a black blindfold. On the desk there is also a white piece of paper and a small flowerpot. Other students can be seen behind them. Two students sit at a desk. Both have black blindfolds on. In front of them on the desk are two funnels each connected to a tube. One of the students is currently trying to attach the tube onto a music disk. Other students can be seen behind them.
A picture of Mona Minkara standing with a large group of high school students. They are posing for the camera. Below them is a hard wood floor and the wall behind them is a light green.
A young student in a camo t-shirt is assembling a clear tube to the bottom of a funnel. A hand to their side is offering them a black blindfold. On the desk there is also a white piece of paper and a small flowerpot. Other students can be seen behind them.
Two students sit at a desk. Both have black blindfolds on. In front of them on the desk are two funnels each connected to a tube. One of the students is currently trying to attach the tube onto a music disk. Other students can be seen behind them.
A student with a red shirt sitting at a wooden table. He is looking down as he attempts to attach a clear tube to a funnel. White paper, a small flower pot, and a music record can also be seen on the table. Other students can be seen behind them.
A student in a white shirt wears a black blindfold. He is assembling a contraption that consists of two funnels attached together by clear tubing. Other students can be seen behind them.
Two students sit at a desk. One wears a green t-shirt while the other wears a pink dress and green hijab. The one in the green t-shirt aid The girl in the pink dress with assembling a contraption as she wears a black blindfold. Other students can be seen behind them.
Two students, one male and one female, communicate through two funnels connected by clear tubing. The boy is wearing a black blindfold and is speaking into the tube as she listens. Other students can be seen behind them.
Two students, one male and one female, communicate through two funnels connected by clear tubing. The girl is wearing a blue shirt and is speaking into the tube as he listens. Other students can be seen behind them.
A student wearing a camo T-Shirt uses the tube/funnel contraption to listen to their own heartbeat. With one funnel on their chest and the other up to their ear. Other students can be seen behind them.
Two students sit at a desk. One wears a green t-shirt while the other wears a pink dress and green hijab and is wearing a black blindfold. She listens into a funnel while her partner taps the other end of the funnel. Other students can be seen behind them.
Two male students sit at a desk. One is playing music on his smartphone through the funnel while the other holds the end funnel to his ear.
Students sitting at a table. On the right one student wears a blindfold and uses a funnel/tubing contraption to listen to their heartbeat. Another student next to them helps them with this. On the left a student listens into a funnel. On the table between them are music records on a pole.
Two students sitting at a desk attempt to assemble a paper music player. One is blind folded while the other puts a paper cone secured by a flowerpot onto a music record.
A student wearing a blindfold uses a funnel/tubing contraption to listen to their own heartbeat. Other students can be seen behind him.
Two students attempt to attach a paper cone onto a flowerpot. On the table before them is a music record, scissors, and a funnel connected to a tube.
Two students attempt to assemble a paper cone. One of them is blindfolded and holding the cone while the other watches him.
A student wearing a blindfold holds a paper cone in his right hand a flowerpot in the other. He is attempting to attach the cone to the pot.
Two students sit at a desk. On the table before them are funnels, tubing, a music record, and a flowerpot.
Two students sit at a desk. Both have black blindfolds on. In front of them on the desk are two funnels each connected to a tube. One of the students is currently trying to attach the tube onto a music disk. Other students can be seen behind them.
Two students sit at a desk. One of them has a blindfold on and is holding a yellow pen.
Two students sit at a desk. Both have black blindfolds on. In front of them on the desk are two funnels each connected to a tube. One of the students is currently trying to attach the tube onto a music disk. The other is adjusting their mask.
An unblindfolded student aids a blindfolded student with placing a tube into the top of a funnel.
A student sits at a desk as he listens to an explanation from an instructor. Other students can be seen behind him.
A student with a blindfold uses a funnel and tube to listen to the heartbeat of another student.
A student watches as another blindfolded student attaches two funnels together using a clear tube.
A student watches on as a blindfolded student uses scissors to cut a piece of clear tubing.
Two students sit at a desk. Both are blindfolded. One of them attempts to place a metal rod into the middle of a music record.
Two students attach a paper cone to the end of a flowerpot.
Two students sit at a desk. One is blindfolded and is asking a question to a nearby instructor.
A students fills up a paper cup with a water bottle near a high window. Flowerpots line the windowsill.
Two students and an instructor work together to attach a paper cone to a music record.
One student holds a metal rod upright as another attempts to center a music record on it with their head down.
A student looks at the materials on the table. These include a blindfold, funnels, a music record, and clear tubing