Blind and partially sighted students across Hampshire and Sussex will soon be able to feel the ripples of gravitational waves and hold 3D-printed galaxies in their hands. The Tactile Universe team at the University of Portsmouth is creating multi-sensory resources—tactile models, audio guides, and 3D-printed objects—that translate astrophysics and core physics topics into forms vision impaired (VI) students aged 8–16 can explore by touch and sound. The problem is straightforward: physics and astronomy teaching relies heavily on visuals—charts, images, simulations—which exclude VI students from full participation. Without accessible alternatives, these students miss out on STEM learning and the career paths it opens. If this project succeeds, it will change how physics is taught to VI students across the UK. The team will co-create new resources with specialist teachers and students, covering waves, forces, motion, and day-night cycles. They will train a national network of presenters to deliver workshops anywhere in the country. All resources—including downloadable 3D-printable files and physical kits—will be freely available online. The result is a lasting infrastructure that makes fundamental science genuinely accessible, not as an afterthought but by design.
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The Tactile Universe is an award-winning public engagement project based at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG), University of Portsmouth that is changing the lives of young people with vision impairments (VI) by making current astrophysics research topics accessible to them via multi-sensory resources like 3D representations of astrophysical images. We’ve also been working to change how educators, researchers and PE professionals across the UK think about accessibility through bespoke training and resource sharing. To date, the project has developed and used its tactile resources to help young people with VI experience the size and scale of our solar system, to understand what gives every galaxy in the Universe its own unique colour and shape and, with the addition of audio resources, to engage with the exciting field of gravitational wave astronomy. With the support of the STFC, the project once again has the chance to expand to cover even more exciting topics, and ensure its lasting legacy. Like astronomy, visuals are often relied on to communicate physics more broadly, and VI students in school settings can find it difficult to engage with the topic if it is taught in traditional ways. The Tactile Universe team are uniquely positioned to leverage our past experience creating tactile and multi-sensory resources to tackle this issue. With the aim of making sure students have the knowledge they need to engage most effectively with our previously developed workshops, we will work with specialist teachers and VI students from several primary and secondary schools across Hampshire and Sussex, to co-create additional resources and activities suitable for VI students aged 8-16. These will cover core physics topics including waves, forces and motion and day and night cycles. To make sure that the project's resources, old and new, reach everybody that they can, the Tactile Universe will continue to train and grow a network of presenters who will deliver activities to VI students wherever they are based. The resources that the Tactile Universe will develop during this Legacy Award will also be made available online through www.tactileuniverse.org, alongside our existing tactile resources, lesson plans and guides currently shared on the website. Anyone with access to a 3D printer will be able to download and make their own set of tactile resources. We will also produce a number of physical resource kits to distribute to schools and other project partners
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