Here's to year 6 with this amazing program! I'm very excited to meet my penpal! They are in 6th grade, so this is one of the older students I've had so far (three years running before this were 4th graders). I'm looking forward to sharing our love of the ocean, animals, and computers! 

If anybody needs me, I'll be checking my mailbox. 

Today I got to meet two classes of VERY enthusiastic 5th graders who live in Kansas. Participating in this program as a marine biologist is always especially fun when I get to meet kids who may have never seen the ocean before. We talked about ecosystems, food webs, keystone species, and shark burn (worse than rugburn, I promise!). 

I was so grateful to see students wearing masks, but it was still hard to see full classrooms together knowing they are too young to be vaccinated. I'm glad this program continues to unite scientists and students, but now more than ever, we can meet online!

My favorite question from today was "what is the scientific evidence for why we think Greenland sharks are the oldest vertebrates?". Future scientist right there!