Cecilia Valenzuela, a retired TUSD teacher and a Manduca Project workshop instructor, brought a very special group of individuals to the 20th Annual UBRP Conference on January 17. The group consisted of 18 teachers, all bilingual or multilingual, speaking Spanish and other native languages. Fifteen of the teachers are from Mexico, two are from Guatemala, and one is from Honduras. They were selected to spend a year in Tucson studying math, science, language, and cinema and participating in other workshops to foster personal and professional growth.  They also receive instruction in the culture of peace and in workshop planning. As part of one of their courses, Science With a Focus on the Environment, the teachers conduct their own experiments to be presented to the class at the end of their stay.

The teachers are here under a teacher education program sponsored by the Department of Language, Reading and Culture in the UA College of Education and are funded by the US government. The Cooperative Association of States for Scholarships (CASS) is an international development and peace scholarship founded in 1985 and administered by Georgetown University. The purpose of the project is to contribute to the development of the participant countries by providing access to education and preparing local workforces to meet their communities' social, economic, and democratic goals. CASS teachers are leaders from disadvantaged rural areas who have a strong commitment to return and serve their home communities. Typically, CASS teachers are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, but recently the program has also accepted teachers from Mexico.

The feedback from the CASS visitors about the UBRP conference was very positive.

One of the teachers, Ciria Guevara, was surprised with the sophistication of the undergraduate researchers. She thought the presenters' projects said a lot about future advancements in human healthcare. What caught her attention the most, though, was the utility and real-life application of the scientific process.  In her experience, the scientific process is something only seen in books. She will take back her experience and encourage her students to apply the scientific process for themselves in the same way the presenters did.

Another teacher, Geronimo Avila, really enjoyed the tour of BIO 5 and being in a cutting-edge facility. He particularly enjoyed one of the labs he saw on the tour.

Appreciative of the help they received from various translators, the teachers were able to absorb something important from every one of the posters translated for them. They paid special attention to posters that had to do with Manduca sexta caterpillars because they will be studying them soon. Of particular interest were posters about kissing bugs, cancer, and osteoporosis. One aspect that was absorbed and taken to heart was the poster abstracts; the teachers will write their own when it comes time to present their experiments to their Science with a Focus on the Environment classmates. Inspired by the conference, one of the requirements for that course is now to include future questions to investigate at the end of the teachers' presentations.

The teachers were very eager to go to the conference, and in the end it was a very fulfilling experience, if for no other reason than the food, which they enjoyed tremendously! The memories, and knowledge gained will last them a lifetime, and it is exciting to know that they will inspire others in their home countries to be passionate about science.