University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 30, May 8

             E-mail provides student contact with mentors
     
     Linked for Learning, a program associated with UD and
created in 1992 by Conrad Middle School teacher Elizabeth
Ward Pope, was highlighted in a recent article in UPDATE, a
publication of the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for
Mathematics and Science Education with a circulation of over
200,000, including every school in the United States.
     In the article, John Meakin,  engineering, discussed
the opportunities such a program offers to elementary
students and faculty on campus.
     The program, begun at the Wilmington middle school,
uses e-mail to create an interactive relationship between
students and a number of professionals in the academic and
business communities. Now in its fourth academic year, the
program was designed to give students a chance to learn how
math and science are applied in the workplace. It also
allows them to communicate with adults who actually use
science and math daily in their careers.
     Currently, the program has nearly 20 mentors
representing business corporations, law enforcement and
education. It also involves UD faculty members Carmine
Balascio, agricultural engineering; Robin Elliott,
occupational health and safety; John Masden, geology; and
Michael Keefe and Meakin, engineering.
     According to Keefe, the program brought professionals
into the school to visit and talk with 120 sixth grade
students about real life jobs.
     Keefe said a 10-minute presentation is usually followed
by  a discussion and a question-and-answer period with the
mentors students. He said they have asked classroom visitors
such questions as: "How much money do you make?" and "Have
you ever built anything?" and later via e-mail: "Why do
ships float?"
     After the visit, he added, Linked for Learning
maintains contact between mentors and students by
encouraging the sixth graders to continue thinking of other
questions they would have liked to ask the guest speaker but
did not have the opportunity. Later, the teacher e-mails
these to the speaker, who will reply to the students via e-
mail.
     This ongoing, e-mail educational contact continues, and
according to Pope, helps the students make a real connection
between what they are doing in math and how their learned
mathematical concepts are used in the real world.
     Pope said she also feels the program helps teachers
employ new teaching strategies that can be reinforced in the
classroom. She said she can see a solid correlation between
what teachers are doing with math in the classroom and what
national standards are asking educators to teach.
     Linked for Learning has been recognized by the Red Clay
Consolidated School Board and was also named an example of
exemplary instructional technology in 1992-93 by the
Delaware Department of Public Instruction. The Delaware
Chamber of Commerce presented the cooperating Conrad Middle
School teachers with the New Castle Superstars! in Education
Award in 1995.
     "Linked for Learning creates a great communication
between professors and kids," Keefe said, "while also
letting the students know how science is used in careers."
                                                 -Kathy Tabb