Spanish Language Version of the "Windows to the Universe" Earth and Space Science Education Web Site

"Windows to the Universe" is a web site that provides over 6,000 pages of content on a broad range of Earth science and space science topics to K-12 students and teachers and to the general public. The entire site is being translated into Spanish (see http://www.windows.ucar.edu/spanish); approximately 1,000 pages have been translated and are currently available online. The site also includes write-ups of more than 80 hands-on classroom activities, about 20 of which have been translated into Spanish to date. Windows to the Universe was first offered to students and educators in 1995; the first Spanish language versions of pages were posted online in late 2003. This presentation will describe our efforts to date to make science education materials available to Spanish-speaking and bilingual students, educators, and the general public. It will cover our outreach efforts through the web, television and other traditional media outlets, presentations at science teachers' conferences, local schools, and other channels. Statistics describing usage of the Spanish language sections of the web site indicate that our efforts to reach Spanish-speaking learners are succeeding. As of early September 2004, the monthly averages for traffic to the Spanish language pages of the site are around 112,000 visitors, 120,000 sessions, and 349,000 pages viewed. These values account for 25%, 24%, and 16% of the total traffic to the entire (English and Spanish combined) site, respectively. Since a significant fraction of the English-language portion of the site still remains to be translated, and since approximately 13% of the population of the United States is of Hispanic origin, these numbers represent a remarkable success in terms of disseminating science education materials to Spanish-speaking students and teachers.