DonorsChoose
ejohnson | October 19, 2009Last week, ScienceBloggers celebrated Earth Science Week with a flood of geocentric posts. This year's theme this was Understanding Climate, and was the basis for a whole host of events in the coming days. Tuesday was No Child Left Inside Day, dedicated to taking kids outside to learn and play. If you weren't able to take kids outside, Kim Hannula at All of My Faults Are Stress Related provided an alternative: Donate to the Geobloggers Giving Kids the Earth challenge on DonorsChoose.org. Anne at Highly Allochthonous hand selected five classroom projects for funding, and Anne and Chris will…
grrlscientist | October 16, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
National Wildlife Refuges Week (11-17 October 2009) is almost over already, but we've made good progress because four projects in my "Biology is Life" Challenge have been fully funded! The teachers for each project have posted thank you letters that you can read here: The Viking Shark Project, the Cow Eye Dissection project, the Please Pass Me the Scalpel, Nurse project, and the A Room Without A View project.
There are more proposals in the "Biology is Life" Challenge that need your help, so be sure to check them out by…
grrlscientist | October 13, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
National Wildlife Refuges Week (11-17 October 2009) has is half over already, but we've made good progress because four projects in my "Biology is Life" Challenge have been fully funded! The teachers for each project have posted thank you letters that you can read here: The Viking Shark Project, the Cow Eye Dissection project, the Please Pass Me the Scalpel, Nurse project, and the A Room Without A View project.
There are more proposals in the "Biology is Life" Challenge that need your help, so be sure to check them out…
grrlscientist | October 12, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
Nobel Prize week has ended wonderfully: four projects that I included in my "Biology is Life" Challenge have been fully funded! The teachers for each project have posted thank you letters that you can read here: The Viking Shark Project, the Cow Eye Dissection project, the Please Pass Me the Scalpel, Nurse project, and the A Room Without A View project.
There are more proposals that need your help, so be sure to check them out by clicking on the above widget.
Remember: YOU can choose projects to fund as well. Just look…
sciencewoman | October 9, 2009A few nights ago, Minnow was in the mood to make videos of some of her favorite books - almost any books, except ones with an overt scientific bent. Right now, she wants books with a storyline, and I'm afraid that some of the sciencey books I'd lined up for this month are not story-driven enough for her tastes.
But among the books she picked out, was a Little Golden Book called "Little Cottontail" by Carl Membling and illustrated by Lilian Obligado. As we read the book, it occurred to me that while on the surface this was a heart-warming book about a little rabbit's coming of age, if we dug…
sciencewoman | October 7, 2009We're a week into our 2009 DonorsChoose challenge, and as of 11 am EDT, we've raised $250 for science education of high poverty students around the country. In 2007, we raised $1104, and last year: "Forty-two Sciencewomen readers contributed a total of $1863 to help 917 needy kids learn about science and engineering." If we're going to get anywhere near that number this year, we need to pick up the pace a bit. I understand that money is tight for all of us, this year more than ever, but money is tighter than ever for public school teachers, who spend an average of $500 to $700 per year out of…
grrlscientist | October 6, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
I am focusing on this project, The Viking Shark Project, because there are only four days left to fund this proposal before the deadline passes and 70 students from an impoverished high-crime magnet classroom are left wanting -- AGAIN!
The teacher is asking for 35 dogfish for his 70 students to dissect and this proposal has already raised half of the required funds, but it still needs to raise the remaining $248.50 so these kids can enhance their educational experience.
Given the fact that sharks are so misunderstood…
grrlscientist | October 6, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
What better way is there to celebrate the Nobel Prizes than by helping kids in impoverished classrooms throughout the nation begin their own pursuit of their dreams? By helping kids improve their science education, you will be helping them focus on the positive aspects of their lives and give them an outlet for their energy so they realize that they do have a future! To learn about the proposals that I've chosen to be funded (I do add proposals to my Challenge every few days), click on the above widget (if you use…
grrlscientist | October 5, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
The first day of Nobel Prize week has started off wonderfully: Diana from Omaha, Nebraska donated enough money to complete one DonorsChoose project that I included in my DonorsChallenge! Appropriately enough, in this project, Please Pass Me the Scalpel, Nurse, the teacher was asking for funds to help her students in a high-poverty classroom in Washington state gain more knowledge of medicine through the purchase of dissecting kits.
There are more proposals that need your help, so be sure to check them out by clicking on…
ejohnson | October 5, 2009This week kicked off the 2009 Donors Choose Social Media Challenge--a program ScienceBloggers take part in annually to help public school teachers build scientific literacy, engagement, and excitement among their students. DonorsChoose.org is an online charity where public school teachers from across the country submit requests for specific needs or special projects in their classrooms, such as microscopes for biology lessons or notebooks for a writing workshop. Readers can browse these requests online, and choose any classroom they'd like to donate to. The program has been an important event…
terrasig | October 2, 2009I can't believe October's here already and it's time again for our annual social media challenge to raise money for US science teachers. Last year, eight generous, erudite, and good-looking Terra Sig readers donated at total of $1,972 to impact the lives of 1,865 students.
DonorsChoose.org is "an online charity connecting you to classrooms in need." I wrote about Terra Sig's support last year and you can read my personal statement about Why We Donate to DonorsChoose Projects.
For example, my heart was broken last year when I read of a project for students a mere 35 miles from a major state…
sciencewoman | October 2, 2009In support of our on-going DonorsChoose challenge, this month Minnow and I will be exploring science-related books for SciWo's storytime.
I have to admit, I'm enjoying the challenge of finding sciencey books appropriate for a 2.5 year old's attention span. There seem to be a plethora of books for the 4-8 year old set, but fewer for the younger crowd. Well, that's not true. There are an awful lot of books about animals, especially farm animals, but Minnow has got her animals down pat, and we all know there is more to science than zoology.
I'm also discovering that it is easier to keep Minnow…
grrlscientist | October 1, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
I just looked at my blog and noticed that my first DonorsChoose donor has made a donation and has spoken! Who will be next? Perhaps you will be the next donor to step forward to defend the availability of science education and intellectual development for all Americans, regardless of socioeconomic class?
Remember: YOU can choose projects to fund as well. Just look through the proposals and let me know which one(s) you wish to fund, and I'll add them to the line-up.
I can also be convinced to do a weird stunt to inspire…
grrlscientist | September 30, 2009tags: DonorsChoose, science education, teaching, fund-raising, poverty
October is my favorite month of the year because this is when we, the public, get together to support public education by donating money to the DonorsChoose.org's Blogger Challenge 2009! DonorsChoose.org is a charity that uses your donations to purchase specific items and materials for classroom projects that the teacher has requested, and they send these materials directly to the classroom. Basically, this is a "fraud free" way to support public education and to help needy kids have the same educational experiences…
bioephemera | June 5, 2009Thanks to SEED's matching Bloggers Challenge funds and some generous donors who gave me DonorsChoose gift certificates for Christmas, I got to push several worthy projects to completion this winter (by "topping off" their funding). That meant that I got real, snail mail thank-you packages from those classrooms.
At first I was a little ambivalent because I didn't really want the kids to spend their valuable classroom time thanking me. But then I realized that while writing those thank-you notes, they spend at least a few minutes thinking about the fact that a complete stranger cares about…
sporte | October 25, 2008Why should professional scientists have all the fun?
Researchers have been engineering glowing cats, and selling glowing fish at pet stores. High school kids can do genetic engineering too, if they have the right equipment. And you can help them get the equipment by contributing to our DonorsChoose fund drive.
If you're willing to help students, they'll be able to do biotechnology in the class room and learn about DNA. They'll put genes for green fluorescent protein into bacteria and see how that bit of invisible liquid in a test tube gets used to make a glowing protein.
Even better,…
scientificactivist | October 23, 2008Seed just announced that it will be matching up to $15,000 in donations to this year's ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose Challenge. This is great news, and if you haven't donated already this is a great reason to do it now. There's only one week left!
You can donate to my challenge here.
scientificactivist | October 14, 2008We're now two weeks into our 2008 ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose Challenge, which means that the challenge is almost halfway over. So, if you haven't donated yet, please do! Either click on my widget to the left or on this link. The pace of donations has been a little slow this year, which is a shame considering that there are so many worthy proposals in need of funding. Let's step it up!
In case you needed a little bit of extra motivation, though, Seed just announced that it's offering prizes to donors. To maximize your chances of winning, donate as soon as possible, because prize drawings…
zooillogix | October 2, 2008Zooillogix is participating in DonorsChoose, a very cool annual fundraising effort to directly provide needy schools with the materials they need. There are literally thousands of projects to choose from and we selected some pretty modest ones that we hope our readers will choose to support.
#1 An enterprising elementary school teacher in the Bronx wants to buy supplies to keep all sorts of live critters in the classroom, including: hermit crabs, butterflies, worms, ladybugs, pill bugs, and praying mantises.
#2 Another Bronx elementary school teachers wants to get an incubator, fertilized…
pontiff | October 1, 2008DonorChoose, an organization which matches teachers requests for funds with donors, is running their annual blogger challenge. Already Cosmic Variance is trying to harness their vast resources of physicists, The Optimizer is appealing to the base nerd in everyone, He of Uncertain Principles is offering up his dog's services for donations (does the dog know?), and the moral Mathematician is offering solutions to math homework problems (err I mean blog posts on a chosen topic.) But I think you shouldn't fall in this trap and support those blogs....
Because, of course instead you should…