Warren County Middle School Students Attend Spanish Immersion Workshop

Students from a Warren County Spanish Immersion Camp spent Thursday learning about Latin American vocabulary and cuisine at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

The camp is run by the Warren Forest Higher Education Council and included various activities to immerse students in Latin American culture by exploring various Spanish-speaking nations through music, dance, art and foods, including a visit with a chef from Wegmans grocery store in Jamestown, N.Y., who prepared Latin American cuisine for the students and showed them how to make it, as well.

At Pitt-Bradford, Dr. Carys Evans-Corrales, professor of Spanish, designed a workshop based on her college course in food vocabulary.

The sixth- and seventh-grade students took a trip to an imaginary restaurant, where three Pitt-Bradford Spanish students waited on them.

Students ordered in Spanish from the menu, interacted with their Spanish-speaking wait staff and learned a bit about each of the countries represented on the menu: Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Spain.

Pitt-Bradford students helping with the workshop were Megan Truman, a sports medicine major from Bradford; David Verbocy, a sport and recreation management major from Bradford; and Kaitlin Zapel, a human relations major from Bradford.

Following the pretend lunch, the students were served a real lunch in the KOA Dining Hall and took a tour of campus.

Students from another Higher Education Council camp, “21st Century Girls Career Camp” will be on campus next week to work with Dr. Mary Mulcahy, associate professor of biology, and Dr. David Merwine, assistant professor of biology.

Campers will learn about pollination by collecting flowers, examining their sugar content using sugar refractometers, and staining pollen grains and flower parts to determine whether plants have been successfully pollinated.

Pictured, David Verbocy, a sport and recreation management major from Bradford, serves Tristan Boger of Warren at the “Restaurante de las Americas” Spanish immersion workshop set up at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Thursday by Spanish professor Dr. Carys Evans-Corrales.
Photo courtesy of Pitt-Bradford