SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — The path to Lost Lake was steep and unpaved, lined with sharp rocks and holes.
A group of scientists and students moved gingerly, using canes or a helping hand to guide them. For those who couldn’t make the trip, a drone highlighted the lake – blue and narrow.
The field trip was designed to illustrate the challenges that researchers with disabilities often face and how the obstacles can be overcome.
“Just because you can’t do it like someone else doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” said Anita Marshall, a University of Florida geologist who led the outing. The group included scientists with visual, hearing and motor disabilities.
Marshall’s organization organized a trip to the lake along the San Andreas Fault outside San Bernardino. His group — the International Association for Geoscience Diversity — and others are working to improve access to field and lab work so that people with disabilities feel welcome and stay.
Taormina Lepore, a Western Michigan University paleontologist who went on the trip, said scientists tend to favor a unique, traditional way of getting things done.
At Lost Lake, everyone had a view, even if they couldn’t physically get there.
“It’s really about empathy, as much as it is about science,” said Lepore, who also researches science education.
Making research laboratories more accessible
People with disabilities make up about 3% of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce, according to 2021 data from the National Science Foundation.
Scientists with disabilities say this is partly because laboratories, classrooms and field sites are not designed to accommodate them. Students and faculty are still being told they can’t work in a lab or do research safely, said Mark Leddy, who previously managed disability-related grants for the National Science Foundation.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, sets minimum regulations for new buildings and laboratories, including wheelchair-accessible ramps and walkways.
But modifying older labs can be a long and complicated process.
Alyssa Paparella is working on her doctorate in biology at Baylor College of Medicine and founded an online community for scientists with disabilities. She said a science building at one of her former schools didn’t have automatic buttons to open doors.
“What does that say about who do you actually want to work in the labs?” » she said. “That’s the front door they can’t even get in.”
Leddy said researchers with disabilities are invaluable because of their life experiences. They must constantly find creative ways to overcome obstacles in their lives – a problem-solving skill essential in a laboratory.
“If they don’t feel welcome, if they don’t have access, how can they contribute that talent? » said Leddy.
Venu Varanasi, a biomaterials engineer at the University of Texas at Arlington who is visually impaired, prints signs using high-contrast color combinations and encourages his students to keep floors and counters tidy so they can navigate the lab more easily .
He said the changes also kept accidents to a minimum for non-disabled students.
“When you realize you have a person with a disability, you have an opportunity, not a problem,” he said.
At Purdue University in Indiana, engineering professor Brad Duerstock helped design an accessible biomedical lab years ago with support from the school and a grant from the National Institutes of Health, removing cabinets under sinks and fume hoods so wheelchairs can easily stop.
The cost of making a lab more accessible varies depending on the extent of the changes, Duerstock said. Some schools set aside money for improvements and science organizations may offer grants.
Outdoor accessibility
On the California geologic excursion, the group explored the lake carved into the landscape by the San Andreas Fault, where the network of two tectonic plates can cause earthquakes.
The group included rock enthusiasts at all stages of their careers. A handful of them were students. Others were teachers eager to explore the outdoors within a group they could trust to care for them.
Jennifer Piatek, a professor at Central Connecticut State University who uses a wheelchair, saw the lake through drone footage and used a handheld lens to examine rocks reported by other participants.
She said it was nice to be part of a community that anticipated her needs. For example, their bus moved forward to park in a flatter area to allow it to get off more easily.
You can learn a lot from images and maps, “but actually you have to access space to be there,” said Piatek, who studies planetary geology.
Lepore, a visually impaired neurodivergent person, scanned rocks using an artificial intelligence app that described their color and shape out loud.
“Nature is not inherently accessible,” she said. “Nature just doesn’t have ramps or the kinds of things we wish it had. But there are so many workarounds and ways that we as geoscientists can make things truly open.
Bushra Hussaini uses tips from field trips to support interns and volunteers with disabilities at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where she works. She said the support of the geology community is what keeps her coming back. “We learn from each other and help each other,” she said.
Before leaving, Marshall urged attendees to ask for a hand or shoulder to lean on if needed. She and other members of the organization lead field trips each year as part of the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.
As a doctoral student, Marshall would go on field trips with her peers only to wait in the van, frustrated, because the organizers hadn’t thought about how to accommodate her disability.
She wants things to be different for the next generation of scientists.
“The purpose of these little day trips is just to plant that seed out there,” Marshall said, “that there is another way forward.”