The day before excursion day at ICME 11 contains two plenary activities: a plenary lecture and a panel debate. The plenary lecture is held by José Antonio de la Peña (Mexico), who will talk about current trends in mathematics. The panel debate is entitled “History of the development of mathematics education in Latin American countries”, and is lead by Fidel Oteiza (Chile). Members of the panel are: Eugenio Filloy (Mexico), Ubiratan D´Ambrosio (Brazil), Luis Campistrous (Cuba) and Carlos Vasco (Colombia).