To Touch Nature is a sister project of one we have already organised several times in previous years under the name To Touch Culture. Although in 2020 it took on a slightly different form than usual, it is still part of a tradition close to us as a team of the Jagiellonian University’s Disability Support Service - the tradition of uniting the academic community regardless of the differences that might divide it.

Previously, we tried to make our guests focus on art and that time around we sent them to the Jagiellonian University’s Botanical Garden because also nature has a soothing effect, not just art.

We have therefore prepared a series of short reports from our visits to the Garden, published regularly in weekly episodes on the DSS profile on Facebook (@Dzialds.OsobNiepelpnosprawnychUJ).

The passing year 2020 was full of - against all odds and the ominous weather - successful changes for the Garden. One of them was the installation of tactile graphics dedicated to persons with sight disabilities accompanying selected representatives of flora from all over the world. Their author, Dr Lech Kolasiński, designed twelve boards: ten of them are plant adaptations, while the other two are plans of the garden and greenhouse no. 5. Visitors can not only touch the graphics, but also listen to the audio guide in an application with the still working, yet charming name Daktyl referring to the Greek name for finger (daktylos as in the word ‘dactyloscopy’), but the association with a specimen of the date palm growing in one of the recently renovated greenhouses of the Garden. The app is available for IOS and Android (Botanical Garden Audiodescription NFC). Participants of the multimedia tour will be able to listen to rich-in-content material about, among others, the Canary Island date palm, ferns, cacti, water hyacinths and even... Nile lettuce. And all this in the hope that all those infected with the botanical bug, without exception, will be able to walk the paths of the oldest garden in Poland.

We would like to thank the Garden’s team for their hospitality and help with the series. Let us hope there will be more tactile graphics. A little bird told me the Jagiellonian Oak was waiting for it, too.