Research on Barrier-Free teaching Materials for Environmental Education on Natural Experience-Based Activity

Abstract

I produced barrier-free teaching materials for environmental education on a natural experience-based activity. Instead of relying on eyesight and focusing on visual impairment, I tried instead to implement teaching materials that relied on touching and grasping certain features of creatures by hand. Then I evaluated a student with visual impairment and a teacher using a questionnaire. The trial production of the teaching materials clearly showed that it was difficult to grasp creatures. Furthermore, teaching materials development requires direct touch using fingers by the visual-impairment teacher, who already knows the features of the creatures being examined. Moreover, JASSO reports showed clearly that the disability studies student enrollment rate at the Faculty of science and agriculture is notably low compared with that at the Faculty of sociology and humanities. I consider that this shows that environmental education is not taught during childhood, and thus development of barrier-free teaching materials is needed.