By now you’ve hopefully heard the name Diana Trujillo, the Colombian woman who came to the US at age 17 and is now a team leader at NASA working on the Perseverance Mars Rover.

Her story is one that should be highlighted in Spanish classrooms. If you are already a TPRS teacher, including biographies of important people is something that tends to get overlooked in early levels. While it is difficult to talk about more complex topics at this stage, as we try to build language, we must look for ways to do it.

As I posted an article about her on a FB group, most of the teachers responding were upper-level teachers who were ready to talk about her in the AP or upper levels classes.

But of course, you know your students’ ability best and being able to edit the text to use certain vocabulary words and make it more comprehensible is super important. We have AN EDITABLE version of that document (as both a text document and Google Slide presentation) as well as a more ADVANCED text (as Google Presentations) available for purchase here.

If you are teaching upper levels, you may wish to share videos. A new station in Colombia did a 30-minute interview with her, which is shared on our Facebook page.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV5Lci1HlDI

There are many interviews in Spanish with her on Youtube.