Wherever Lourdes Flores goes in Washington State, the reaction is the same. The moment Dual Language teachers hear her describe the free Spanish language STEM resources available through PEI, they want to learn more. “They are very interested,” says Flores, PEI’s Multicultural Program Coordinator. “Often there aren’t enough materials in Spanish for them to use or they don’t know how to access them.”
Currently, PEI offers Spanish-language versions of K-3 Schoolyard Investigations, K-3 ELA Performance Tasks and four Climate Science Solutions Oriented Learning Storylines (SOLS). The latter includes K-12 teaching materials on wildfire and food waste, 5-12 materials on forests and 4th-grade materials on coastal hazards.
The Spanish versions provide benefits for both teachers and students. Instead of having to translate content before using it, a time-consuming and labor-intensive process, teachers can easily implement materials with no extra work. For students, learning in their native language makes STEM more accessible while strengthening literacy.
Flores is working with translator and Bethel School District Spanish teacher Jason Gregory on finalizing Spanish versions of performance tasks for grade three. Gregory ensures that the translations are consistent across grade levels in how they use scientific terms, and that the language is broad enough to be accessible to students from a variety of Spanish-speaking nations.
“Jason teaches Advanced Spanish, and he pays a lot of attention to small details with grammar and punctuation,” says Flores. “If there is a rhyme in English, he figures out how to make it rhyme in Spanish and maintain the same meaning. I like how he translates very much.”
Grade 4 and 5 ELA performance tasks will be available for teachers in the 2022-23 school year.