Esther Ortiz-Castillo applied her life-long interest in aquatics to her research, targeting the local pools to see how many were accessible for people with disabilities.
"I've always been involved in aquatics as a swimmer and I've taught lessons," said Ortiz-Castillo, a graduate student in adaptive education. "I want other people to experience the same thing. Sometimes they can't, though, because the facilities aren't accessible."
Ohio State gave students like Ortiz-Castillo the opportunity to present their research or ideas about disability at the Eighth Annual Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion and Disability conference Tuesday.
During the two-day event, faculty, staff and students were able to attend sessions about topics relating to disability issues such as universal design, accommodating disabled students in classrooms and translating Shakespeare into sign language.
Junior mechanical engineering students Alex Wohlgemuth and Anju Gupta represented Engineers for Community Service, the student organization in which they are co-vice presidents.
"The past couple years, ECOS has built three wheelchair ramps for people in the community," Wohlgemuth said. "We wanted to get the word out (about ECOS). … We're a relatively new organization and we want to learn more about other people's needs in the community."
Students set up their presentations on posters and displayed them on tables in the Blackwell Hotel so guests could browse through them. The presentations addressed a variety of issues relating to disability.
Joe Dollins, an education administration graduate student, had a poster presentation about the National Wheelchair Basketball Association.
He became involved in wheelchair basketball as an undergraduate student at Wright State University and coached a team.
"I want to educate people about what's available to women, men and children and teach them about adaptive athletics," Dollins said.
Other students presented posters on the research they had recently completed.
Heather Dawson, a graduate student in education psychology, presented her research that she conducted in the past year or so, she said.
"I'm looking at teachers' beliefs on their ability to teach students with disabilities," Dawson said.
Students from other out-of-state universities were also encouraged to attend.
Nicole Shepard, an undergraduate from Indiana University East, attended the conference for the first time to display her presentation after one of her professors informed her about the event.
"(The poster) is how the scientific method can be applied for teaching so that it can be adapted for inclusion of students at all levels," Shepard said.
In order to participate, presenters submitted their poster presentation that addressed disability, access and inclusion in some way and were later notified if they were allowed to present, according to OSU's Americans with Disabilities Act Web site.
The conference was held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Pfahl Executive Education and Conference Center.
Michelle Fehribach can be reached at fehribach.4@osu.edu.
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