Blind Chemist Creates STEM Curriculum for Sightless Children

MINNEAPOLIS — When she was 6 or 7, Mona Minkara’s eyesight began to fade.

Eventually diagnosed with macular degeneration and cone rod dystrophy, the post-doctoral research fellow in the University of Minnesota’s chemistry department is now working to create a STEM curriculum for blind children in developing countries, the Minnesota Daily reported.

Minkara, is creating the curriculum with the help of her assistants, who aide her in her computational chemistry research. She studies surfactants — molecules with one end that is attracted to water and another end that is not.

Minkara said she wants the STEM curriculum to be blind-accessible and low-cost. It will be implemented at a camp in Lebanon that has programs for both blind and sighted children.

The camp trains blind children in life skills and integrates them with sighted children through sports and artistic activities. Minkara’s sister started the camp in 2009.

“We would love for them to consider the option or possibility that maybe one day they could become scientists,” she said of blind children.

Minkara said most blind-accessible curricula are expensive and her team wanted to create a way to translate visual science experiments into something blind students can understand.