Chemistry is notable for its use of colour; designing experiments that use colour as a guide to let students know how they are doing is both: inexpensive and informs the student of their progress. This creates barriers for students with colour vision deficiency (CVD, often referred to as colour blindness), as they will not receive the same reassurance as their peers, and may feel they are performing the experiment incorrectly. CVD affects ~8.5% the world's population: protanopia (~2%), deuteranopia (~6.5%), and tritanopia (~0.01%). This session aims to highlight first-hand experiences of students/instructors with CVD and how a students-as-partners approach created optimal conditions to navigate these difficulties without the need for drastic changes to course content. While the presentation will feature concrete examples from the chemistry laboratory; the strategies and ideas presented for navigating CVD are applicable to any classroom or workplace open educational resource.
Attendees of this session will be able to:- Recall the types of colour vision deficiency, including the most common type found.
- Identify common challenges individuals with colour vision deficiency may encounter in the classroom or workplace.
- Describe concepts, tools, modifications, and solutions which can be integrated into open educational resources to improve accessibility with respect to colour vision deficiency.
