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Thank you! The response to our call for scientist volunteers was absolutely outstanding! Over 620 scientists have signed up and requested a pen pal, which means that none of our excited students will be left out. So what happens now? This year, we have 400 students in several classrooms, eager to start chatting with scientists. …

Do you know someone who loves science education? Someone who wants to work on a fun project with teachers and scientists? We want to meet them! Letters to a Pre-Scientist is run entirely by volunteers, and this year we’re trying something new. We are offering two unpaid internships: Social Media Coordinator and Science Classroom Program Coordinator. As …

Welcome to Letters to a Pre-Scientist! Notice anything different? We are so excited for the 2015-2016 school year to start, and we decided that the website could use a fresh coat of paint before getting started. We hope that visitors to our site can quickly and easily find the information they need, whether they’re using a desktop or …

All of us on the organizing team give thanks often to the scientists who donate their time and energy to Letters to a Pre-Scientist. We remind our pen pals that they are making a difference in a young person’s life. However, it seems like that the message gets across more clearly when it comes from the young people themselves. We did …

As letters are piling up and we are preparing for letter opening day #3, my students are becoming more and more excited. They ask me every day if it is time to open pen pal letters yet. It is just as exciting opening letters in February as it is in September. With that being said, …

It’s hard to believe that we’re already at the half way point of this school year. Students came back on January 5th and we’ve hit the ground running. Currently we’re studying meteorology and learning all about forecasting the weather. In just a few weeks we’ll be making weather predictions of our own. With all the …

Students at KIPP Academy of Opportunity in South Central Los Angeles had a blast during Letter Opening Day #2 this past Tuesday! The smiling faces and weeks of anticipation make each opening day just as exciting as the first. It is amazing to see letters of all shapes, sizes and colors, differently tattered by the …

This year, my 6th grade students have a unique opportunity. My students participated in the letters to a pre-scientist program while they were in 5th grade and many of them were able to keep their same penpals! Johanna Parker told me about this program last year and I could not wait for this year to …

We opened our first letters from our pen pals yesterday! Letters were sitting in bins on my desk for a few weeks as we waited for them all to trickle in – when students saw “Opening Letters” on our agenda for the day there was a huge cheer in each class. Students addressed their envelopes, …

This year, our scholars started learning about the STEM field.  We first learned what it stands for: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.  We then learned about several really cool STEM jobs that fascinated the students such as tennis shoe engineer, sports statistics analyst, and veterinarian.  We then explored the question: “Who currently holds STEM jobs …