This multi-touch book is designed for your iPad and is available for download from iBooks.
Produced by a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute and SAS, this interactive book includes interviews in which scientists from NASA speak directly to young students; also included are graphs and visuals (e.g., the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, the electromagnetic spectrum) that kids can both look at and listen to, striking images from the Hubble Space Telescope, interactive questions, a glossary of over 100 terms, and much more.
Students explore the fundamentals of astronomy, the latest scientific advances, the tools that make those advances possible, and careers in science. They'll discover how the universe began, how different kinds of stars are born, and how those stars change over the course of their lives. And they'll take a closer look at the Tarantula Nebula, the largest and most intense region of star formation in the Local Group of galaxies. Reach for the Stars is the perfect resource to expose all students-including those with visual impairments and other print disabilities-to critical STEM content.
You can download the book directly onto your iPad. Open iBooks on your iPad and navigate to the Store within iBooks. Search for: "reach for the stars touch look listen learn," and select the Download link. Or, try this link.
This interactive iBook is free!
The format is iBook and must be read using the iPad.
To view this book, you must have an iPad2, iPad3, iPad4, iPad Air or iPad Mini running iOS7 and iBooks version 3 or later. The tactile overlays are compatible with only the full size iPad models.
Yes, to fully experience the features of this book, you should be a skilled iPad and VoiceOver user.
No, you do not need internet.
Reach for the Stars is a state-of-the-art digital textbook. It was designed to exploit the rich interactivity of the Apple iBooks platform including audio, video, interactive glossary, search, highlighting, and custom notes. All of these features are accessible to blind students using VoiceOver.
The book was designed to meet the needs of students with disabilities. It includes standard accessibility features such as large text, high contrast colors, read aloud, and closed captions as well as innovative new features, such as audio embossing and sonification, that enable blind students to perceive graphical material.
Reach for the Stars is compatible with the VoiceOver screen reader on the iPad and a refreshable braille display, and contains sonification of data visualizations as well as read-aloud functionality and captioning. Tactile overlays for interactive images are also available from National Braille Press. You can find more information here.
National Braille Press first created molds or master tactiles using the interactive images from Reach for the Stars. After the master tactile graphic is created, NBP uses a thermoform machine to heat a sheet of plastic over the master tactile graphic, which creates a clear and exact copy, which can then be prepared to be used as an overlay on the iPad!
- Remove your iPad from the case in order to correctly apply the overlays.
- Enable VoiceOver.
- Double tap the image.
- In your set of tactile overlays, find the corresponding chapter and section number in the bottom right corner.
- Slide blunt ends of suction cups into each of the four punched holes in the overlay.
- Line up the tactile image over the print image. For this step, you may need sighted help.
- Explore!
We created a video to explain the new and innovative accessibility features we included in the interactive images. Watch the video on YouTube.
This book is intended for students in grades 4-8, but is interactive and fun for users of all ages!
Please email questions to mobilelearning@sas.com.
Please share comments and rate the book in the iBookstore. Or feel free to send feedback directly to mobilelearning@sas.com.
Reach for the Stars was made possible by support from NASA for EO-12939.17 Education and Public Outreach program "Tarantula Nebula E/PO." Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in Reach for the Stars are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration..