With her long brown curls tumbling down her back, 6-year-old Angela Stopa of Darien leans her head back as far as she can and stretches her pointed finger upward toward a huge bubble floating over her head. When the bubble gently collapses around her outstretched finger, Angela’s laughter is almost drowned out by the excited shouts of her peers.
Angela has just completed her final experiment in the scientific concept of water surface tension. She is one of a group of physically challenged children, 4 to 15 years old, who participate with their families in monthly sessions of the Access Science program at DuPage Easter Seal, a pediatric outpatient rehabilitation facility in Addison.
The program’s immediate goal is to provide opportunities for children with disabilities to enjoy science through hands-on activities.
Each session tests adaptations to hands-on experiments used in regular classrooms so they can be accessible to the disabled. Each session is devoted to one scientific concept, like water surface tension, electricity or magnetism.
One experiment focused on water molecule density and tested whether a paper clip can float on water. A non-disabled person can gingerly place the clip on the surface, but the unique challenges presented by cerebral palsy make that slow, steady, drop-and-release action a difficult task.
To adapt the experiment for a disabled person, they placed a clip inside a short plastic cup with a small hole in the bottom. They placed the bottom of the cup in a bowl of water so that liquid could seep slowly through the hole. The clip floated.
DuPage’s program is one of 22 at Easter Seal centers across the country funded through two-year grants from the National Science Foundation. The curriculum was designed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., and each site has developed adaptations for its own clients. Organizers communicate regularly to discuss which adaptations were successful. The successes will be compiled into a teaching manual of 12 scientific concepts and several hands-on activities that are accessible to the disabled.
With the adaptations being explored at the Easter Seal centers, “children can actually physically manipulate the materials themselves and learn through active doing,” said Linda Merry, director of clinical services at DuPage Easter Seal. “Usually the science materials are so difficult to manipulate that the kids are passive observers to what’s going on, “
The national program’s ultimate goals include incorporating these adaptations into regular elementary and high school classrooms. The hope is that disabled students could consider careers in science, a field where they are not well represented.
“Most of these kids in the past would have gone into a workshop type of program, but ever since computers and advances in technology they have been able to pursue these kinds of careers,” said Judy Gardner, DuPage Easter Seal director of assistive technology.
“We wanted to increase the numbers and the interest (in science),” said Laureen Summers, a program associate with AAAS who helped create the Access Science curriculum and helps train staff.
Born with cerebral palsy, Summers, 50, is intensely interested in the program. “I wasn’t encouraged at all in science when I grew up,” she said. “I was always so nosy and curious that I tried to figure stuff out, but I didn’t get any encouragement that I remember and no assistance to be able to do activities.
“And that’s going on even today. Teachers don’t have training working with disabled people; it’s not a part of their training curriculum. So a teacher goes into a classroom and finds all these disabled kids and has no idea what to do, except to be frustrated.”
Having parents and siblings participate in the Access Science program is important to help replicate a classroom containing non-disabled students, Gardner said, and when parents are involved in the program, they become stronger advocates for their children.
The program’s instructors are also important components, she said. Dave Bolton is a 7th-grade language arts teacher at Herrick Middle School in Downers Grove who had no experience with the disabled. Mary Jo Day of Roselle, who has cerebral palsy and who used Easter Seal rehab facilities herself, recently received a bachelor’s degree in social work.
“What I’ve learned is that with enough support and time and people doing the legwork early on, you can communicate, you can get (disabled children) involved in scientific concepts,” Bolton said. “But taking that and putting it in a regular classroom, when most classrooms are run by one teacher and maybe an aide, this is a real luxury. You start thinking about things like costs and benefits, and you get into all the politics of a situation like this. . . . Not all places are going to get this kind of one-on-one.”
Like Summers, Day can bring personal experience to the program.
“When I was going through grade and high school, I was more of an observer,” Day said. “I wish this program had been around when I was going through school because it would have made science a lot easier, and it would have made understanding some of the concepts a lot easier.”
During a recent class, students’ reactions ranged from rapt attention to excited squeals while they performed hands-on experiments. Fun is an important element in their learning process, Summers said.
“It is wonderful when people have fun learning. They remember and they want to do it over and over again,” she said. “I don’t remember science except for sitting there daydreaming.”
