For years, Odalis Avalos believed that speaking Spanish as her first language was a disadvantage. Then she helped teach a lesson about bees to a room of bilingual elementary kids, and everything about how she saw her own language changed.
Odalis, Christian Trujillo, and Diana are the co-founders of Ciencia Para Todos — Science for Everyone — a volunteer-run organization that trains future STEM educators and teaches science to Spanish-speaking families across California.
What started as an angry flyer at Cal Poly Humboldt in 2019, born out of feeling unwelcome in their own environmental science classrooms, has grown into a statewide movement built on one idea: bilingualism isn't a gap to close. It's a superpower.
In this episode:
How a single 2019 flyer became a statewide bilingual STEM organization
Why Spanish went from feeling like a disadvantage to a superpower
Building science vocabulary in Spanish from scratch, with no formal training
Partnerships with US Fish and Wildlife, NASA, and Redwood Parks Conservancy
Why belonging to a culture doesn't require fluency in its language
What Ciencia Para Todos needs most right now — and how to help
A mid-episode note on Latino Conservation Week, September 12–20
ABOUT CIENCIA PARA TODOS A volunteer-run nonprofit training future STEM educators and teaching science to Spanish-speaking families and students across California. 🌱 https://hsucienciapt.wixsite.com/original
ABOUT YOUR HOST Scott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.net
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