Grants Aid in Improving Education and Technology for the Deaf 

The National Science Foundation's Program for Persons with Disabilities has
awarded two grants totaling more than $600,000 to develop resources and
educational strategies for deaf students in science, mathematics, engineering
and technology (SMET) fields. The Clearinghouse on Mathematics, Engineering,
Technology and Science (COMETS): A Comprehensive Resource in the Education of
Deaf Students program by the Rochester Institute of Technology's (RIT)
National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) received $199,000. The
Classroom of the Sea (COS) project based at the University of Connecticut
received $430,000. Dr. Henry Lang, a professor at RIT's NTID, was the primary
investigator for the grants. 

The objective of the COMETS program is to establish a network connecting deaf
students, teachers, parents and support providers through a centralized Web
site, through which participants will exchange information on the best
educational methods in SMET fields. To date, more than 450 people and
organizations have joined the COMETS network since the Web site went online
at http://www.rit.edu/~comets. 

The COS project focuses primarily on "communication access." The project will
identify scientific terminology important to teaching marine science, and
then develop prototypes of technical signs in the context of American Sign
Language (ASL). For example, the term "compressional wave" does not have a
sign commonly used in ASL. By analyzing how deaf students and their teachers
express this concept, COS researchers will develop appropriate guidelines to
enhance the teaching-learning process. Such a model, developed in
consultation with linguists and sign language instructors, may be applied to
other areas of science and mathematics as well. A lexicon of scientific signs
is being developed for the COS project to identify existing signs and
determine the terms for which no signs currently exist. For more information
about this project, visit http://ap.nurc.uconn.edu/cos. 

For more information about NTID, visit http://www.rit.edu/NTID.