On November 7, 2019, the KeyPal program kicked off its’ 26th year with a site visit to IBM, MIT and Draper Laboratory. The KeyPal program is a partnership between fifth-grade students and adult volunteers from three local businesses; Draper Laboratory, IBM, and M.I.T. This year-long program exposes students to a vast majority of occupations through positive interactions in person and email exchange. Below is what took place on our first site visit.
- At MIT KeyPal matches met for the first time and shared their “I AM…” poems. They also began to draft an “I AM…”poem about their Keypal. The students then learned about fingerprinting.
- Draper KeyPals met in the Atrium which is the venue were KLO fifth grade students visited to see The Hack the Moon exhibit this October. They also shared and created “I AM” poems, then they then worked in table teams to design polymers, and worked as teams to create slime and hovercrafts. Matches worked in 3 Design teams to create a vehicle that would be able to navigate through 3 different types of terrain.
- At IBM, students met their KeyPals for the first time spent their time engaged in conversations learning about their KeyPal and sharing things about themselves. Students aso shared and created “I AM…” poems. The group also played a Jeopardy game to share and learn more about IBM. These visits are opening students eyes to the amazing work taking place in our very own neighborhood. The
fifth grade students are scheduled for another KeyPal site visit in December!