The letters look just great!

Nice job! I'm going to go and vote now.

Your letters are very convincing!

These letters are amazing! They are SO well-written and convincing that I could hardly decide how to vote. I love that I could put an astroid in my pocket, and who can really say that about a potential planetary body of the year? The fact that I could potentially hold a winner in my hand was quite convincing. But I think my vote will go for Pluto, where I can finally get a little ""privacy."" Quite compelling argument. I love blue. I love rings. I love craters. I love stinky things. I love burning blazes. All great arguments. But privacy feels most interesting as a reason to vote for Planetary Body of the Year. Plus, Pluto deserves some respect after a few humbling years. Don't you think?

Thanks all of you for giving me such a hard choice!

Beth Beck
Space Operations Outreach Program Manager
NASA Headquarters
Washington, DC
@bethbeck"

Welcome to our contest for "Planetary Body of the Year."
Students in our class worked very hard researching planetary bodies, boiling down the important information, and finally writing these brilliant persuasive letters to a NASA scientist. (We are so grateful for her reply!)

We are also very thankful to Mrs. Gordon for posting our letters on her WIKI page. Have a look around at the letters, and don't forget to vote for your favorite "Planetary Body of the Year!"

--Mr. Lyons

Dear Students,
WOW! All of the letters were so persuasive and had so much information in them it was hard to make a choice for Planetary Body of the Year. All of you deserve a round of applause for the excellent work you put into this project.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Mulvaney

Really, really well done! What a great thing to learn about! I know those NASA Scientisits will love your letters.

What a creative project! You are great writers. --Mrs. Ferris

I could not believe how much information was contained in each letter. It made it so hard to pick just 1 planetary body - you all created such well written letters. --j.

I so enjoyed reading all your letters. It was a tough decision to only choose one entry. It is obvious that you are ready to move on to third grade! Keep writing and of course from a reading teacher I must add "Keep Reading!"

Mrs. Lucco

I can't believe no one wrote a letter for Earth! This beautiful Earth of ours is totally unique in the cosmos (or is it?) and by far and away my favorite planetary body. Without Earth there would be no you and me! :) I love the others, too, though, so my vote goes to our shining star: the sun. GREAT JOB, KIDS! LEARN! LOVE! GROW! --Mrs. Jarvis (GCS)

These letters are GREAT! the letters everyone wrote are awesome! you guys REALLY did good. --john

I love your letters and made my choice hard, but I have to vote for Mercury. I may be biased though since I teach about Mercury and the satellite, MESSENGER, which NASA sent to Mercury (and will arrive there next March!) Keep up the great work!

Gene Gordon
Mercury MESSENGER

Fantastic letters and awesome arguments! I enjoyed reading about all of the nominees for Planetary Body of the Year. It was a tough choice for me. It finally came down to a vote between Saturn and Uranus. However, my long time favorite, Saturn (which I myself did a project on many, many years ago in 6th grade!) won out in the end.

I hope you learned many amazing things about our solar system while researching for your letters!

Janelle Wilson
6th grade science teacher
http://www.mrswilonscience.com
http://twitter.com/janellewilson

you did a good job on your letter betsy and plouto has the most votes --madisyn

Mr. Lyons class, you are all very persuasive! I chose Neptune because we have such LOOONG winters on earth that I feel like I need to choose a cold planet that is way out in our solar system!! Nice writing from all of you!!! --Mrs. Piraino

Everyone did a great job! It was a very enjoyable project. They were very persuasive. It was hard for me to only pick one but I did it! --Kimmy

You all did an amazing job on your letters. I learned so much about the planets while working with you on your final copy. You should all be very proud of these projects. I had a very hard time deciding, but did vote for the planet Neptune because Maddie was so persuasive and excited when she read me her letter. :)
--Mrs. Coons

All of the letters are very well done. It is hard to choose which place would be best! Nice job second graders!
--Mr. Kranz

GOOD JOB!
--Joel

Thank you to everyone for sharing your views on the planetary body of the year. I especially appreciated the many specific details each entry used to support your position. It is clear that you all did your research. I also appreciated reading the different voices in each of your writing - it made reading a bit more interesting. Thanks for using the Wiki to share your work - it was great to read and see all you've done. --Mr. Cole

Great work everybody! I learned so much about our solar system from all of you! I hope you enjoyed doing this project and that by doing this research you have learned many interesting things about our solar system.You acted like scientists in discovering these facts! I also hope that you want to learn more about the planets and the stars, and maybe you will want to visit your local planetarium.Have a great summer!

--Wayne Mendryk