"This project aims to create innovative applications for visually impaired and disabled people. Our main idea is to make Astronomy accessible to visually impaired and disabled people. Visually impaired people cannot view astronomical images and have difficulty in perceiving them. We are proposing an application that can aurally interpret an astronomical image as sounds. The selected astronomical images will be scanned producing a specific series of sounds. When the software detects an astronomical object e.g. a planet, a star, or a galaxy then the sound tone, volume and frequency change following the respective form of the object and its dimensions. Furthermore, we wish to make our application compatible with mobile devices, so visually impaired people can detect interactively on the touch screen the respective astronomical objects. Following the same technique with sound changes after finger-touching searching someone can discover the form and size of an astronomical object. Additionally, we propose the creation of a database of astronomical objects. Towards this direction we developed an unofficial collaboration with Astronomical Society ""ORION"" and also included a partner that can provide astronomical data from an Observatory. Towards the same direction, the Experimental High School of the University of Patras will establish a collaboration with Observatories sited at Greece. The enrichment of the database will be the main responsibility of partners from Spain, France and the aforementioned Greek school. Straight after the enrichment of the database, we will construct a website specially prepared for disabled people. This website will provide access for disabled people to astronomical data from their homes. Phone instructions, phone orders and distant requests for astronomical data and objects will be some of the basics of this website. The construction of the website will be the main responsibility of the University of Patras as well as the development of the applications. Of course, the University of Patras will supervise all stages of the project providing all necessary directives. Following the first stage of preparing and constructing digital tools, we need to apply, test and evaluate our tools. Thus we carefully selected partners that are experts in special education for visually impaired people, or disabled people. Three out of seven partners are schools for students with special needs. In the second half of our project, we will visit one by one these schools applying our digital tools, evaluating the applicability, functionality and effectiveness. Then we will further proceed to changes and upgrade our prior versions. We finally wish to provide publicly some really useful scientific tools for people with special needs. We strongly believe that a disabled person must have free access without any obstacles to scientific resources, but even more, we believe that technology must serve the special needs of humans in any way, even ""visualizing"" astronomical images for visually impaired people."

Four of the schools involved in this partnership have already cooperated successfully in an Erasmus+ project, three schools were new to Erasmus+ school partnerships projects. All schools involved educate students with special educational needs (autism spectrum disorders, esp. Asperger syndrome, behavioral issues, mental and combined handicap). The idea of the new project arose from discussing education, future and career choices of students with special needs in different countries - all partners saw necessity to continually enrich and innovate their repertory of methods to motivate students and teach them skills necessary for successful social inclusion, such as financial literacy, functional reading, social skills, teamwork and communication skills, etc. Without these skills, our students have difficulties in higher education which they often fail to complete, and in adult life in general. The aim of the project FUTURE FOR THE PLANET - FUTURE FOR US was to motivate, activise and coach students with special educational needs to develop the above mentioned skills and competences in order to help them to integrate more easily into local society and to give teachers an opportunity to discover and master new, effective methods. The topic of the project - environment protection - concerned all countries involved, and lent itself well both to use of new, student-centered, participatory learning methods and to the transnational scope of the proposed project. During the first year, students explored local environment, studied both regional and worldwide enviroment protection challenges and tried to come up with a solution for a local, small scale environmental issue and influence thus positively the future of our planet. During the second year, students explored ways to improve their own future by learning financial literacy, functional reading, and sef-care skills. Use of participatory learning methods and team work helped them to develop their social, teamwork and communication skills as well as have a sense of-self-validation. Results of project activities were shared with peers from partner schools via online tools. Transnational learning activities were for students an opportunity to communicate with their peers on an equal basis, to experience the diversity of European nature and culture, to compare and contrast styles of work and learning strategies. Use of English and ICT during the project motivated them to study more these subjects and develop another set of skills useful in their future career. For teachers, meetings brought an opportunity to share and compare methodologies based on diferent education systems, to inspire each other and to develop together an innovative approach to activise students with SEN. The relevant projects results are available for download to serve as inspiration or educational tool both for teaching professionals and for wider public.

This project aims to provide students and educators, with special emphasis on the disabled and the visually impaired, the opportunity to enjoy the experience of Geoparks and introduce them to the Earth Sciences. The project also aims to provide the educational tools (maps and interactive audio-visual content) that will be developed for a remote understanding of the Geoparks for schools, teachers, and students as well as easier navigation for people with disabilities in real visits. The consortium consists of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Patras, the Museum of Natural History of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos, the Liepājas Neredzīgo Biedrība (Liepāja society of the Blind) in Latvia, the Red Cross special school of Cyprus near the geological monuments of the Troodos Geopark, the CEIP LA JARA school from Spain, near the Andalusian Geoparks and OPENCOM I.S.S.C. an ICT company near the huge Geoparks of Northern Italy. Our main task in this project is to develop two applications and one interactive website related to Geology and Geoparks for the visually impaired and the disabled, as well as the general public. The first application will transform images and geological evidence such as fossils, rocks or petrified trees into sound. When this happens a visually impaired person can touch a touchscreen and “feel” according to the sound changes the shape of the fossil or geological evidence. The researchers in the University of Patras have previous experience towards this direction as they have transformed in the past astronomical images into sounds, so now this project intends to expand their activity to other kinds of images. The second application refers to a mapping and navigation application with special features for the disabled and the visually impaired. With this mapping application, a visitor in a Geopark can be assisted in their path, especially one with a disability. This route can then be available to other visitors either they visit the Geopark, or through the interactive website. We aim to provide extra abilities to this application such as uploading images, photos, videos and information related to points of interest in the Geopark. This will be extra useful for a real or a virtual visitor but also will be very educative for teachers that wish to provide their students with a multimedia lesson to a geological monument. Apart from this, a person with disabilities that cannot access a Geopark can thus accomplish a sort of virtual visit.We believe that our consortium is capable and experienced enough to provide the necessary effort and efficacy towards the successful fulfillment of our project. We have capable school partners from countries with UNESCO recognized Geoparks (Cyprus, Spain, Greece) and additionally the support as a partner from the President of the world UNESCO Geopark Network, Professor N. Zouros, from the Museum of Natural History of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos. Apart from these partners, the University of Patras as a technical and research leader will provide the pioneering experience in the field of developing the applications and OpenCom apart from the proximity to Italian Geoparks can provide us excellent ICT expertise.The Museum of Natural History of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos is strongly interested in using the applications towards the direction of making these visits friendly to visually impaired and disabled persons. The developed website will contain all materials as free to use, according to the Marakesh agreement signed by EU that claims access to people with disabilities and especially blind people to all intellectual outputs.