Giving Compass' Take:

• Level Up is the summer camp portion of an organization called Envision that offers coding and STEM boot camps to students who are visually impaired.

• How will programs such as Level Up help to encourage more visually impaired students to pursue degrees in STEM?

• Read about how the latest education technology is helping blind and visually impaired students learn science. 

Mariah Maryman, a 10th-grader at Kennedale High School, southeast of Fort Worth, Texas, has never let her visual impairment get in the way of speaking up for herself and her needs in the classroom.

But with coding and other STEM skills now playing a more predominant role in the curriculum, blind and visually impaired students, such as Maryman, require a range of accommodations to be able to keep up with their peers and imagine themselves pursuing careers as computer scientists or engineers — support that might not be available during the summer months when school is out.

That’s where Level Up comes in. A project of Wichita, Kan., based Envision, Level Up is a summer camp where visually impaired middle and high school students learn how to use screen readers, magnification software and other forms of assistive technology.

Level Up began in 2006 with some refurbished computers and about four high school students from the Wichita area. Now students are coming from at least seven different states for a week-long residential experience, held at Butler Community College for middle school students and at Wichita State University for those in high school.

According to the American Printing House for the Blind, more than 62,500 K-12 students are legally blind. And while there are over 7 million adults in the U.S., based on data from the American Community Survey, less than 5% of professionals in STEM fields are blind.

They added that the low representation of blind people in the STEM workforce is likely discouraging to blind students in high school who are beginning to think about college and career pathways, especially if they feel a lack of support from parents and educators.

Read the full article about visually impaired students learning STEM by Linda Jacobson at EducationDive