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  2. For the Birds!: Increasing Diversity Among America's Bird Watchers

For the Birds!: Increasing Diversity Among America's Bird Watchers

By grrlscientist on October 20, 2009.

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I am focusing on this project, For the Birds!, because it targets fifth grade kids, the perfect age to get them interested in birds for life. Further, this is a high-poverty classroom in NYC (my home), and I wish to help the kids here develop an appreciation for the glorious bird life that migrates through here and resides in this large city. But this is an expensive project because they are asking for 15 binoculars for a classroom of 30 kids, so I donated $300 to this project to get it started. Will you donate money to help me help this classroom?

In recognition of your kind gifts to help others, Princeton University Press is offering 2 books with a value of up to $30.00 each as prizes to two of my DonorsChoose Challenge donors: one book will be awarded to the donor who gives the largest gift, and the other book will be given to a donor who will be randomly chosen by my parrots using a method that I have yet to develop (suggestions welcomed). This kind offer covers most of Princeton University Press's trade science titles and guide books (view their catalogue PDFs here) and they also pay postage, so this costs you NOTHING! All that you have to do is send me your mailing address after making your donation and you will be automatically entered into this competition.

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Here's a possible method for letting the parrots choose the winner:

Write the names on index cards. Divide the cards into two equal piles, as far as possible. Place the piles in the cage of a parrot. Take the first pile touched by the parrot and discard the other one. Repeat until only one card is left.

If you want to avoid any possible bias, add an empty card whenever there are an odd number of cards, so you can divide them exactly into two equal piles. Don't remove any empty cards. If the chosen card is empty, start over. However, if you're scrupulous about this, you may end up needing several repeats, so you might want to stop adding the empty cards at some point.