CUR - The Council on Undergraduate Research

Biologia Molecular y Celular Para Todos: Increasing Access to Cell and Molecular Biology Through Multilingual Science Activities

Edwin Girald, Science and Technology Department, Inter American University of Puerto Rico at Aguadilla, PO Box 20000. Aguadilla, PR 00605 Nathan Reyna Ph.D., Department of Biology, Ouachita Baptist University, 410 Ouachita St. Arkadelphia, AR 71998 Elizabeth Padilla-Crespo Ph.D., Science and Technology Department, Inter American University of Puerto Rico at Aguadilla, PO Box 20000. Aguadilla, PR 00605

Inclusive science communication has been described as any effort that aims to engage individuals in STEM grounded in equity, inclusion and intersectionality. Different challenges exclude highly capable multilingual learners from engagement, such as the lack of diversity among the early learners, the use of diverse methods and vocabularies that create barriers, lack of formal curricula and/or training activities to expose individuals. Language can be a major barrier for inclusivity, therefore multilingual learners may be more responsive when initial concepts, exploration and inquiry are presented with their mother tong, familiar language(s) and language practices. The changing demographics in the U.S., call for new approaches and resources to overturn this inequity in science education. In order to make science more culturally and linguistically responsive, we have developed a series of Spanish science communication videos and workshops introducing the fundamental concepts of Cell and Molecular Biology, and opportunities in Synthetic Biology through inquiry and hypothesis-driven questions using the cBio Cancer Genomics Portal (http://cbioportal.org).  A diverse pool of Puerto Rican students (>100), representing different socioeconomic backgrounds and levels (K-12 & undergraduates) have been impacted. Our efforts will shed light into the dissemination, application and best practices of science bilingual resources and outreach communication efforts.

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