At Boise State, 13 percent of the university’s 2019-2020 student body identifies as Hispanic or Latinx. However, for many Hispanic students there is a stigma that their first language, Spanish, does not belong outside of the home, let alone in higher education settings, explains World Languages assistant professor Carolina Viera.
That’s where Project Scientia comes in. Taking its name from the Latin word for “science,” this project is the product of a team of Boise State faculty, graduate students and undergraduates working to translate science into Spanish, and make science more inclusive and accessible for the Hispanic community, both on and off campus. The project’s full name is “Project SCIENTIA: Communicating STEM Research in Languages other than English,” as it seeks to eventually widen its scope to include more languages.
