Second-graders in teacher Maribel Vilchez’ class piled mounds of silt and clay on paper plates to test their hypotheses– “las hipotesis” — about which material would have the most porosity — “porosidad.”

“Cuantas tazas de agua?” she asked, as students measured and poured cups of water into bowls.

Spanish and science are intertwined at Evergreen Elementary School in Shelton, a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school in the Shelton School District that is one of the few bilingual public schools in the state.

Just more than half of the school’s students are Hispanic, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

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Originally published in The Olympian, March 16, 2008

Featured photo by Toni Bailey.