Modern Day Pen-Pal Program: Acton Students Interact With Students From El Salvador

It's a new twist on being pen pals: a third-grade class in Acton and a fourth-grade class in El Salvador are using online video conferencing and picture-sharing to swap ideas about how their worlds are different -- and the same.

A program of the American Association of Museums, called Museums & Community Collaborations Abroad (MCCA), has brought together students from the Merriam School in Acton and students from the Caserio Helen School in Ilobasco, El Salvador, for a modern day pen-pal program. in Acton and the Tin Marin Children’s Museum in San Salvador received a grant from the MCCA to develop a year-long cultural exchange program geared around the topic “Sharing Biodiversity and Culture.”

Leah Richardson’s third-grade class at the Merriam School and Juan Carlos Pena’s fourth-grade class at the Helen School both received three digital cameras to document plant life where they live. 

“It will add to so much to the students’ studies of weather, climate, habitats, rainforests and culture to be exchanging firsthand information with kids like themselves,” said Director of Learning Experiences at the Discovery Museums, Denise LeBlanc. “Students learn better through firsthand experiences and these interactions will enhance their studies greatly.”

Last Wednesday Juan Carlos Pena sat down in-person with Richardson’s third-grade class and answered questions the students had prepared for him. They asked about the weather, the animal life and the school system in El Salvador. One student even asked him if teachers had to eat the same lunch as the students. Pena had a translator with him, Celeste de Trabanino, Director of Education at the Tin Martin Children’s Museum.

When the Q&A session was over, students huddled together to watch a picture slideshow of Pena’s class on a recent field trip, literally in a field near their school. 

After the slideshow, one by one, the Acton students sat in front of the video camera on the computer and live video-chatted with students from Pena’s class in El Salvador. Though the connection was a bit choppy, students did get to speak with one another for brief moments here and there.

“One of the great opportunities in taking part in an educational and cultural exchange is to hear about how life is in another part of the world,” said Merriam School third-grade teacher Leah Richardson.