Overview
Are you a 5-8th grade STEM teacher in the US who wants to bring Letters to a Pre-Scientist into your classroom? We would love to hear from you!
Teacher recruitment for the 2024-25 school year is now closed. Please join our mailing list to learn more about the program and be notified when recruitment launches for next year (sometime in spring 2025).
Join LPS Now!
Are you a US 5-8th grade STEM teacher who wants to connect your students with real STEM professional mentors to help them see themselves in STEM?
Apply to host Letters to a Pre-Scientist during the 2025-26 school year now! The application will be open until the beginning of May.
Hosting the pen pen program in your classroom is a serious, year-long commitment. Please read the information below carefully before applying.
Please note: You cannot save your answers and return to the application later. We recommend drafting your short answer responses outside the form then transferring your answers to this form when you are ready to submit. Find the application questions here.
Program Goals
- Broaden students’ awareness of the people who work in STEM (the diversity of their identities).
- Broaden students’ awareness of the scope of STEM careers (the locations, workplaces, fields of study, degrees, etc).
- Support students to discover their talent and potential to have a future in STEM if they choose!
Teacher Testimonials
Program Description
Letters to a Pre-Scientist is a year long, snail mail pen pal program that connects your students with a worldwide network of real STEM professionals to demystify STEM careers, humanize STEM professionals, and empower all students to explore a future in STEM.
All students deserve the opportunity to explore STEM careers, which is why we partner directly with you, STEM teachers, to make the program happen during instructional time. We work with you to facilitate the program for every student on your roster.
We aim to give students as much agency as possible during the program because we know your students are more engaged when they have the opportunity to explore topics that are interesting and relevant to them. We also find that students are more willing to practice their writing when they know someone is really going to write them back. Students will learn about and then share their STEM interests with us, then we will pair each student with their own pen pal who has expertise that matches their interests.
We’re extremely lucky to work with an incredibly dedicated and talented network of thousands of STEM professionals who can’t wait to write back and forth with your students. They represent all major branches of STEM, work in many different sectors, and are at varying stages in their careers.
About once a quarter, you will host a Letter Opening Party where students get to open a letter from their STEM pen pal, read it, do some type of activity with it to process and share the content with their peers, then write a reply back. This is the most fun part of the program!
With lots of support from our curriculum, resources, and staff, you’ll guide students to write letters and address envelopes. Then, you’ll collect the sealed envelopes and mail them out to STEM pen pals around the world! Throughout the following six weeks, you’ll collect reply letters from STEM pen pals that arrive at your school and, when you have one for every student, begin the process all over again!
There are four letter rounds per school year; each round has a theme. In addition to addressing the theme, we encourage students to share their stories and ask lots of questions to connect authentically with their pen pal. Read about one student’s experience on our blog. Over the course of the year, students write four letters and STEM pen pals write four letters.
Support for Teachers
Our founder was a middle school science teacher. Our current CEO was a middle school science teacher. We know a thing or two about the demands of your job, and we’ve done our best to create a program that comprehensively supports you so you can focus on supporting your students.
There’s no doubt that hosting the LPS program in your classroom is extra work, but we’ve tried to take everything we can off your plate so you can help students build connections with their pen pals.
Here’s an overview of what you can expect:
1. Access to an editable NGSS and Common Core aligned LPS program curriculum with over 10 lessons. Each lesson is available in an in person and virtual format and includes leveled instructional materials. Many of our worksheets are available in Spanish, and we can work to get them translated into other languages as needed.
2. A dedicated LPS team who will support program implementation in your class. Our program staff’s primary responsibility is to make sure 100% of your students receive a letter from their STEM pen pal every round. They take care of all communication with the STEM professionals matched with your students, and are available to help solve any challenge that comes up throughout the year.
3. The opportunity to join a community of like minded STEM teachers from around the US. We have a summer virtual training and optional virtual meet-ups throughout the year to share best practices and troubleshoot challenges. We share teaching resources, opportunities, and program wins! There is a wealth of knowledge in our teacher community – some of our teachers have been hosting the program for 9+ years, and have been teaching for over 25!
4. We’ll purchase and ship all materials (like stamps and envelopes) you will need to facilitate the program. The program is provided at no cost to your school.
Eligibility Requirements
Please carefully read the list below to determine if you and your students are eligible for the 2025-26 LPS program!
1. LPS works at schools where at least 60% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch (FRL).
a. We recognize that data about free and reduced price lunch eligibility has become somewhat unreliable due to programs providing free lunch to all students during the pandemic.
b. You can review the most recent data about the FRL level at your school here. Once you find your school, look at the bottom of the red Enrollment Characteristics section and find the “Free and reduced-price lunch eligible total” number then divide it by the total number of students.
c. If the percentage does not seem accurate, we trust your judgement.
2. We work with teachers who teach at least one of the following subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.
3. We work with students in grades 5-8.
4. We work with teachers from all 50 states, Washington, DC, and US territories.
5. We don’t work with first year teachers because the additional tasks associated with facilitating the LPS program are not reasonable to expect a new teacher to be able to execute effectively.
6. We don’t work with teachers during the first year they move to a new school (even if they’re experienced teachers) because there are just too many unknowns to adjust to when joining a new school.
Important Dates
– Applications are currently open for the 2025-26 school year! We will begin reviewing applications in early May.
– We will conduct phone interviews in May, and teachers will be selected and notified by the end of June.
– During the summer, we will work together to get the program approved at your school.
– There is a mandatory virtual training over the summer, exact dates to be determined. It will include asynchronous sessions that you can complete when you have time, as well as a few synchronous virtual sessions that will be scheduled based on teacher and staff availability.
– The program begins at the start of your school year, and runs through the academic year, with approximately one letter exchange per quarter. There are a few additional activities to facilitate at the start and end of the year. We estimate the program requires at least 10 60-minute class periods spread throughout the year to successfully implement. We set program milestones individually with each teacher so we can consider their specific school calendars.
Teacher recruitment is closed
We are no longer recruiting teachers for the 2024-25 school year. If you’re interested in hosting the program in your class next year, please sign up to receive our newsletter (subscribe below) to receive program updates including teacher recruitment details in the spring.
