Providing early intervention and continuous service provision to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families in Puerto Rico can be complex due to multiple factors including limited resources, difficulty accessing service providers, and yearly environmental impacts such as hurricanes (Chandra et al., 2021). Implementing…

For the past several years, Eckerd College has maintained a relationship regarding community engagement with Plenitud, an eco-educational organization located in Las Marias, Puerto Rico specializing in permaculture, bio-construction, and sustainable community service projects. However, the purpose and nature of our relationship changed following…

This research paper focuses on the political participation of students from the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey (UPR-Cayey) after Hurricane María. The culture, perspective, politics, and resistance of these students are researched in light of other sub-contexts, such as the protests pressuring the former governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rosselló…

This project report presents a multidisciplinary Faculty Learning Community model to foster civic engagement in STEM classes. It focused on first-year Chemistry, Math, and Scientific Inquiry courses and incorporated Academic Service Learning in a project to build solar cell phone chargers for a school in Puerto Rico recovering from the effects of…

Background/Context: Bi/multilingual students' STEM learning is better supported when educators leverage their language and cultural practices as resources, but STEM subject divisions have been historically constructed based on oppressive, dominant values and exclude the ways of knowing of nondominant groups. Truly promoting equity requires…

A valuable goal for transformation of education is to become a catalyst for developing individual and community values and fostering an ecological culture.

Over the last five years, Puerto Rico has faced fiscal and economic disruptions, demographic shifts, hurricanes and earthquakes, governance challenges, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While most of these conditions are not new to Puerto Rico, the intersection of all these challenges created a nexus for institutional resilience and efforts. This…

The multifaceted influences of coloniality in higher education continue to be explored to reshape and transform spaces that can either reproduce structures of coloniality or bring about decoloniality. The University of Puerto Rico, the central higher learning institution of the archipelago, continues to undergo changes that are influenced by its…

The case study, conducted one year after the passing of Hurricane Maria, explores the Public Montessori System of Puerto Rico as an educational philosophy of resilience. The presentation supports a counternarrative to early literacy development in Puerto Rico by focusing in on two Montessori schools from Vieques, Puerto Rico. Data highlights the…

In the following study, displaced Puerto Rican mothers and I created and explored a learning space -- culture circles -- that engaged participants in a critical cycle of problem posing, dialogue, and problem solving in relation to their experiences in the receiving Pennsylvania community. Using a qualitative, ethnographic approach, the study drew…

Purpose and Method of Study: The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to determine to what extent educational leaders in Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; and the Island of Puerto Rico implemented the school emergency operations plan and recovery planning guides from the USDE before and during 2017 Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.…

On September 6, 2017, Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm packing winds of 185 miles per hour skirted the northern coast of Puerto Rico, leaving 1 million residents without electrical power. Schools were closed for 5 days, but a major calamity was narrowly avoided. Overall, residents were grateful for their good fortune, but the same could not be…

We present a case study of the transition from a face-to-face course to an emergency remote course to a successful online course at the University of Puerto Rico, a Hispanic Serving Institution that has faced economic and natural disaster hardships during the past few years. We discuss the selection of free-of-cost and accessible technology…

After Hurricane María, approximately 3,500 students enrolled in on Florida's school district from Puerto Rico. Displaced Puerto Rican high schoolers incurred the transitional costs of forced migration at a time in their educational trajectories when they are formulating their postsecondary plans. While student mobility is not uncommon, prevailing…

The year 2017 was successful for the Smithsonian by any measure. Their curators opened insightful and inspirational exhibitions. Their scientists continued to do groundbreaking research that benefits humankind. Their educators are reaching more people than ever before with compelling programming. The years-long, Smithsonian-wide campaign soared…