Neiri Carrasco, MESA Program Director

Acceso a la Ciencia's vision (Access Science) is one of science education equity in Washington State. By the middle of the century, Latinos are projected to constitute 25 percent of the population of the United States (American Community Survey, 2005), but as a population they are struggling with the science and technology skills necessary for the 21st century. In 2006, Acceso was implemented as a means to respond to the great need for community based bilingual (English and Spanish) family programs designed to increase the involvement of Latino students and families in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Acceso is a five-year (2006-2011) National Science Foundation funded informal science education program successfully engaging thousands of members of Latino communities in rural eastern Washington each year.

The collaboration between Pacific Science Center, Yakima Valley Tri Cities MESA and Washington State University, believes in the potential of not only individual students but also in the impact that families and communities can have in empowering and supporting students with the experiences, guidance and resources necessary to succeed in STEM fields. Utilizing an inquiry based approach for all of its educational programs, Acceso works with community organizations, school districts and community members to provide wholly new experiences for participants as well as to enrich existing practices in science education. The intended outcome is to harness the strengths of Latino communities in Washington State to create an engaged and confident citizenry that embraces science and technology.

Developed as a collaborative model to capture institutional expertise for a multi-pronged approach, Acceso a la Ciencia was deployed with the goal to create an informal science infrastructure designed to increase the number of rural Washington State Latino students who pursue STEM degrees in college. The partnership developed, implemented and is assessing the impact of a community-based outreach program that incorporates innovative, hands-on educational materials as well as youth and parent programs. As such, Acceso is broadly enhancing access to informal science education resources for Latino communities.

The high quality of the bilingual educational materials has been a key factor in the engagement of new participants. Pacific Science Center worked with YVTC MESA to develop topics for two sets of portable exhibits and their complementary science demonstrations and take-home guides. Topics were selected with the intent of inspiring parents to engage with the materials and their children as experts. Content centered on the needs and interests of the community which lead the project to showcase agriculture and science careers of Washington. Project evaluation findings indicated that, "95% of the parents who participated in the Acceso events had not participated in any informal science activities prior to Acceso outreach events." (Campbell, 2010) Evaluators now observe Spanish-speaking parents using science terms from the bilingual labels to engage their children in conversation at events.

As part of its implementation strategy, Acceso delivers informal science activities, demonstrations and workshops to events and locations where the community already gathers, while presenting materials in a way that encourages parents and children to learn together. This has fostered trust and strong relationships with many organizations, schools and families throughout eastern Washington. Additionally, we have partnered with targeted school districts presenting ISE in a structured environment focusing on student and parent participation. From September 2006 through August 2010, Acceso has participated in and/or hosted 100 public events serving over 12,000 community members. Considering that 50 of these events (and over 6,000 of those served) took place in 2010 alone, this approach has been effective.

Lastly, the youth internship and parent programs have proven essential for Acceso a la Ciencia. The program recruited Latino teens and parents that through prior participation in MESA and further training via Acceso have become recognized advocates for science in their community. Youth interns have received over 40 hours of training, meet monthly and are paid a stipend as facilitators at a majority of Acceso events. In 2009, youth interns presented for senators at the State Capitol in Olympia and in Texas at the Association of Science and Technology Centers conference. These experiences created a strong sense of ownership for their work in the program. Parent involvement includes educating Latino parents about STEM content, careers and educational pathways for their children. Parents are also trained to deliver science activities at home or in childcare settings and to assume leadership roles in disseminating information within their communities.

Far from exhausting its reach, Acceso has fine tuned its model since its debut. As a recent collaborator for the national SciGirls en Familia project, which brings in-depth bilingual science investigation workshops to families, and as a hopeful NSF recipient for its own national dissemination grant, there is a lot of exciting progress in store.