WEBVTT FILE

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Sitting next to me here are what
we call our Solar Stones,

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and although we did not
originally create the images

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depicted on these tablets,
we replicated them from

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ancient petroglyphs down in Chaco Canyon
National Park.

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They were created around a thousand years
ago by the Ancestral Pueblo people there.

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So this over here

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is the final version of our tablet.

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And it is a depiction
of what we believe is

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a total solar eclipse
around the year 1097.

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And the reason we believe that is because

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looking at this, it has all the telltale
signs of an eclipse.

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It has an occultation in the center

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where the moon would be blotting out
the sun, this very circular shape.

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It has the solar corona out
and along the sides

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and up here on the top is what is believed
to be a reflection of Venus.

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While these tablets would be really good
for any learner,

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we collaborated with the Colorado
School of the Blind so that

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we could make

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these tablets accessible to low vision
learners.

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Space is typically a very visual field.

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You look up at the stars
and you look at pictures of space.

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But if you can't see that, then you're
pretty much completely blocked out

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from being able to study this and be able
to understand this part of history.

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So this way, we have an exhibit
that people can learn from

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if they are sighted or not sighted.

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It took a lot of time to figure out
how much detail we needed,

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how deep the objects needed to be,
what textures we needed to use.

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A lot of these things
that we didn't expect

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we gained context
through lots of user testing.

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So I think this project is really valuable
because it allows people

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to interact with space
in a completely different framework.

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Every person has

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something they can contribute
to the study of space.

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And so our hope is that not only can
the blind and low vision community

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be included in this part of history,
but that sighted learners

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can potentially learn things easier
with a tactile experience.