Pen pal matches are out, and hundreds of scientists are busy writing wonderful letters for their students! If you received a match email, and haven’t started your letter yet, please don’t forget that the letters need to arrive by November 13th – that’s only a week away!
If you’re looking for ideas about what to put in your letter, we have a section on our website with prompts and sample letters to inspire you. The most important thing is to be friendly and genuine, and share some of your passion about what you do for a living. After all, these are pre-scientists, and we need to show them that a love of science is worth holding onto for life!
Some scientists have already sent their letters, and have shared their enthusiasm with us on Facebook and Twitter. Please join them, and tell us about what you’ve written! We’re so excited to see how many of our scientist volunteers have gone above and beyond expectations. Many are using beautiful stationery, and sending drawings and photos of themselves or their research. Some are even including extras like pamphlets and visitor handouts from where they work! This is going to be so much fun for our lucky students!
If you want to help with the cost of keeping the program running, you can send stamps and writing supplies to your student’s classroom in a separate envelope addressed to the teacher, or you can be a sponsor via PayPal on our site. Every donation goes to maintaining the website and providing writing and postage supplies to our students’ classrooms.
We want to thank Northwestern Materials Science Student Association for their recent gift – their generous donation will cover the cost of all of the stamps for the first round of student letters! We’re very grateful to have their support, and it’s wonderful to see college students supporting middle school students on the path to scientific careers!
Image credits: Squid in Ink by Kate Jenkins, from SJanuchowski-Hartley, via Twitter; pamphlets from Michele Tobias, via Twitter
