This paper focuses on the design and application of a teacher training strategy to promote the inclusive education of students with disabilities in the science classroom, through the creation of adult learning environments grounded on the principles of dialogic learning. Participants of the workshop proposal consisted of a group of twelve teachers who were working at various educational levels. Teacher teams proposed and implemented in their classroom, innovative, inclusive science-learning activities about a topic of their choice. Data were collected from interviews with teachers five months after the courses, teachers’ portfolios about their practice during implementation of such sequences, and researchers’ observations. The data suggest that it is possible to stimulate a gradual transformation of teaching practices through a teacher training proposal that promotes self-awareness and critical reflection, situated in the creation of meaning and a willingness to change in the spirit of solidarity and social action. We found elements to recommend the incorporation of these innovations at the curricular and practical level for teacher training schools and for in-service teacher development programmes in Mexico and elsewhere.

• Premise of the study: Microsatellite primers were developed for the cardon, a giant columnar cactus (Pachycereus pringlei) of the Sonoran Desert, to investigate intraspecific genetic patterns of diversity and population structure.• Methods and Results: Using 454 GS‐FLX technology and bioinformatics tools, microsatellite primers were successfully identified on 282 reads, including di‐, tri‐, tetra‐, penta‐, and hexanucleotides. A set of 10 primers were characterized on 80 individuals collected in two areas of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico. All 10 loci were polymorphic, with a mean of 6.3 alleles per locus and overall levels of observed and expected heterozygosities ranging from 0.41 to 0.59 and from 0.40 to 0.57, respectively. Alleles per individual plant ranged from one to four, suggesting a polyploidal genome.• Conclusions: These loci should be useful for future investigations of population structure, genetic diversity, and gene flow in the cardon cactus.