Help young people learn about science?
The program Letters to a PreScientist has expanded rapidly. They need more people in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) to be pen pals with a middle school student. Please volunteer.
Volunteers much complete on-line training. Head to https://prescientist.org/volunteers/ to find out about the program and register! Please see the information below for FAQs.
-- Barbara (sedgequeen)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Who can be a pen pal? / Who is considered a "STEM professional"?
For our purposes, a huge range of people are “STEM professionals”. The main requirement is that you are enthusiastic about communicating with the pre-scientists! We welcome pen pals from all different fields related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and at many stages of their careers. This includes undergraduate students, graduate students, post-docs, industry professionals, teachers, engineers, government employees, healthcare professionals, and more.
What is the time commitment?
In mid October, all STEM professionals who register in this round will be emailed information about an online training that will take ~1 hour; completion is mandatory before you can be matched with a student "pre-scientist". You'll exchange 8 letters over the course of the school year and should expect to devote 1-2 hours per letter. Additional opportunities to interact with pre-scientists will be available throughout the year and will be optional.
Am I guaranteed to be matched with a student?
Our “limiting reagent” is the number of pre-scientists in the classes of the teachers selected to host the program. We recruit more STEM professional volunteers than pre-scientists into our program so that each pre-scientist gets a great match. We also need more volunteers than students enrolled at the start of the year so so that when new students join our teachers' rosters, or a volunteer has to drop out, we can quickly get that student paired with a new pen pal.
Of course we can’t predict the future, but based on our best guess at the moment, people who register now are very likely to be matched at some point this year. We don’t anticipate having much of a waitlist at all this year (although we always need a few more STEM professionals than students, so we cannot guarantee anyone will get matched).
What areas of STEM are pre-scientists interested in?
We welcome STEM professionals from all backgrounds and disciplines! Last year, many of our pre-scientists indicated that they would love to exchange letters with someone in the following STEM disciplines: animals, oceans, computers, space, and engineering.
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