The 2023-24 school year raced by so quickly! Fortunately, it brought many smiles from pre-scientists and many milestones for Letters to a Pre-Scientist. For the first time ever, Letters to a Pre-Scientist recruited teachers from all 50 states and U.S. territories to host the program, expanding our network to include educators in 13 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Wisconsin. At 46, our largest teacher cohort ever gave us the opportunity to match 3,000 students with STEM professional pen pals!
Pictured here is LPS CEO Lucy’s laptop, which proudly displays all the LPS stickers over the years!
In addition to expanding our program reach, we also debuted a STEM professional facing web-based app, “The LPS Mailbox,” making it easier for STEM pen pals to participate and engage in the program. In previous years, pen pals relied completely on emails from Program Managers for information about the program, but now STEM professionals have a centralized dashboard with everything they need to participate. We also connected over 600 of our volunteers through a Discord server where STEM pen pals from around the world had a chance to connect and ask and offer advice about engaging with their pre-scientists.
Speaking of engaging with pre-scientists – a record 23,984 letters were exchanged between pre-scientists and STEM professionals this school year! That’s nearly 24,000 pieces of personalized mail helping humanize the people in STEM and broaden students’ awareness of the vast possibilities a STEM career could offer. Student letters were mailed from 30 schools across 13 states and were delivered across the globe to all 50 states, one US territory, and 29 countries.
Fifty seven pen pal pairs exchanged letters in either Spanish or Ukrainian. Students who didn’t yet read in English were paired with a STEM professional who could communicate with them in their first language. This is one way we aim to give every student on a teacher’s roster the opportunity to learn from and enjoy letters from their STEM pen pal.
Pictured here is the winning sticker design created by Jessie, an 8th grader from Southern California.
We are so pleased to have had such an awesome and momentous year in the pen pal program, and we appreciate everyone in the Letters to a Pre-Scientist community who has made our biggest year yet a success!
