Braille

It was a magical evening. May 15 marked the end to a long career at the Colorado Center for the Blind for Tom Anderson. More than 150 people came to send Tom and Linda off to Kansas after 27 years teaching Braille – and several other duties. We fed them, and gave the tribute to Tom and Linda that we felt they deserved. And we did it without electricity.

That Friday was a generally mild spring day. Sure there were sprinkles and rumbling thunder in early afternoon as the Center’s Board of Directors met in our new conference room, but all that passed over us.

by Diane McGeorge

March’s FAST Saturday will involve taking a journey through prehistory with our hands at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Blind kids participating will be putting their hands on actual fossil bones as well as plaster cast replicas – it might even mean holding fossilized dinosaur poop.

I said it’s fossilized! it’s all coming about thanks to the presence of Cat Sartin as a guest researcher at the Nature & Science Museum this winter. Sartin, a doctoral candidate in paleontology at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, has worked with the National Federation of the Blind’s Jernigan Institute in its STEM-X programs, providing hands-on learning about evolution and paleontology to blind youth.

Museums have traditionally kept artifacts such as fossils and skeletons just out of reach of patrons, if not behind glass, meaning that blind visitors could enjoy a long walk through cool galleries, but not much more.

(Editor’s Note: We are delighted to be partnering with the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind on this year’s Braille Challenge, a nationwide competition sponsored by the Braille Institute. It’s the first time that a test site has been located in the Denver Metro area. Below is the press release.) We’re all going to have a great time with Braille!

Braille Competition to Test Skills of Metro Kids:

CCB Partners with CSDB to Host Nationwide Program

Contact: CSDB: Diane Covington, dcovington@csdb.org or 719-661-0941
CCB: Brent Batron, bbatron@cocenter.org or 303-778-1130 x222