I 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.
I've got started a little late but three of you already hunted me down and have donated a total of $1,737 - due primarily to our perennial megadonor, Diana, who shares the good fortune in her life with kids to combat the anti-science nonsense she sees around this country.
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 capital who needed paper and folders - yes, paper and folders - because their property tax base for school funding was hampered by a city poverty rate of 34%.What in the hell kind of country do we live in when kids don't even have paper to write on in a public school?
SB den mother, Prof Janet Stemwedel, has the whole story for this year on how it works and how you can win FREE STUFF in addition to the satisfaction of making a difference for teachers and students. We are all indebted to Janet for bringing our attention to DonorsChoose back in June 2006.
The ScienceBlogs 2008 Challenge was a huge success! The ScienceBloggers, together wtih matching funds from Seed Media Group raised more than $38,000 from more than 273 donors during the month of October, reaching over 15,000 students in public school classrooms! We hope to make even more of an impact this year as part of the 2009 Social Media Challenge. And to thank you for your generosity, we're giving away prizes to our readers who send us their DonorsChoose.org receipts. Forward your confirmation email to scienceblogs (at) gmail (dot) com and you will automatically be entered in a weekly drawing to win a bag of swag, including Seed custom moleskin notebooks and tote bags and ScienceBlogs mugs and USB drives.About ScienceBlogs' Participation
The bloggers and readers at ScienceBlogs are engaged in the internet's largest conversation about science. It's a conversation we think everyone should be interested in.Public interest in science is high, but public understanding of science is still a work in progress. Helping teachers to build scientific literacy, engagement, and excitement among their students is one way to cultivate a public that can hold its own in the conversation and that wants to be a part of it.
We believe that increasing science literacy is a pre-condition for progress in the 21st century. The classroom is a good place to start.
I'll launch our challenge over the weekend but, until then, please support the projects of my fellow ScienceBlogs.com bloggers:
Learn more about Seed Media ScienceBlogs challenges in one convenient place.
And if you can't get to my challenge by clicking on the graphic at the top of the post, click here.
