Tactile Cartography and Geography Teaching: LEMADI’s Contributions - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 313

The participants in the courses gave a very important contribution to the
development of the research on Tactile Cartography. They pointed out the
difficulties of finding tactile graphic representations in their countries of identifying
the students' necessities such as their need of specific graphic representations, the
representation of a specific neighbourhood where services considered important by
them are placed (school, hospital, therapist, and others). Also, the detailing of a
political map of their countries is important for the comprehension of their own
country. That reinforces the importance of the teachers' qualification for the
production and using of tactile didactic materials.
Considering that a great part of the schools that visually disabled students attend
have access to few resources for the materials acquisition, the use of simple and
low-cost materials was emphasized. The alternative use of different papers,
recycled tissues and rests in general made it possible to improve the representations
used in classrooms by some of the participating teachers.
The second project to be remarked is called “ Integrando Los Sentidos en el
Manejo de la Informacio´n Geoespacial, Mediante la Cartografı´aT ´ctil, con Espe-
cial E ´ nfasis en las Personas Ciegas y Sordas de Ame´rica Latina”. It was developed
in the period from 2007 to 2009 with the financial support of IPGH, in a partnership
with the University of S˜o Paulo (LEMADI)—Brazil, the Metropolitan University
of Technology (UTEM), Latin American Tactile Cartography Center (CCAT)—
Santiago, Chile, and the School Nuestra Se˜ora del Carmen—Cusco, Peru.
The general purpose of this project was the adaption of three-dimensional
cartographic material and the developing of new processes for the construction of
geographic information models to people with hearing and/or visual disability from
Latin America. The project was followed by an intensive discussion and the set up
of a theoretical landmark on Geography teaching for visually and/or hearing
disabled people by the use of Tactile Cartography.
Physical and political maps of the metropolitan regions of Santiago, Chile,
Cusco and S˜o Paulo were made by the use of the collage technique. The bases
were reproduced on transparent plastic and the representations were evaluated
afterwards by visually disabled students from the three countries.
It is important to point out that the standardization discussed and evaluated in the
previous projects was kept and the new evaluations reinforced the efficacy of the
use of patterns to the tactile graphic representations. Besides, this project reinforced
the necessity of the creation of resources that can be used simultaneously by
visually disabled people and other sorts of disabled people.
The project attempted at making the representations on transparent plastic,
which superposes a printed copy with written information beyond the graphic
ones (Figs. 24.8 , 24.9 ).