Philanthropy
jstemwedel | October 26, 2007Ewan made a generous donation to one of the projects in my challenge and wrote me the following:
The concept of a sprog-illustrated nerdy poem was especially appealing... Could I please request a topic of 'brain' (ideally,
hippocampus, but that seemed a little potentially overdemanding)?
The sprogs and I are delighted to oblige. They have drawn some brains, while I offer a villanelle about the hippocampus -- along with our thanks to Ewan for his generous donation!
Who I am is most of what I know.
Limbic seahorse, pray scorn not my plea:
Hippocampus, tell me where to go!
Alas! Disrupted…
jstemwedel | October 26, 2007Dan Hough, a regular ScienceBlogs reader and the webmaster for Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, made a generous donation to my challenge. He requested some insect artwork from the sprogs, and said, "Please tell them from me I think they are really cool!"
Dan, the sprogs think you are the cool one for lending your support to teachers who are trying to make learning exciting for their students. Here's the artwork with our heartfelt thanks.
jstemwedel | October 23, 2007In the last 22.5 days, ScienceBloggers and their generous readers have:
Mounted twenty challenges to fund educational projects through DonorsChoose.
Met (and exceeded!) the targets in five of those challenges (for which I issue a heartfelt "w00t!" to the readers of Retrospectacle, Deep Sea News, evolgen, Signout, and Pharyngula).
Secured every last cent of the $15,000 in matching funds put up by Seed.
Secured more than $2,000 from the Richard Dawkins Foundation to fund classroom projects in the Pharyngula challenge.
Raised $43,079 so far (before even counting that $15,000 in matching funds…
jstemwedel | October 18, 2007A reader made a generous donation to one of the projects in my challenge in the name of Connor S. (age 8) from Conshohocken, PA. Connor S. in interested in the rainforest, so the donor requested an illustrated poem about the rainforest. The sprogs and I are pleased to provide haiku about the five layers of the rainforest:
Emergent layer:
High heat, dry wind, butterflies.
Trees scraping sunward.
Canopy layer:
Lush unexplored continent.
Half the life on earth.
Understorey shade:
Canopy-bound seedlings drink
Small scraps of sunshine.
Shrub layer: broad leaves,
Shade lovers, tiny trees. Light…
jstemwedel | October 18, 2007Regular commenter ctenotrish made a generous donation to a project in my challenge called Starfish View of the Sea. The project was proposed by the teacher of a 6th grade bilingual science class in a Houston school with a high poverty level (88% of the students in the school qualify for free lunch). It's an ambitious project and it still needs $322 more to become a reality.
Of course, if just 13 people could pony up $25, it would more than cover the project.
And, each of those people could hit the sprogs up for some artwork, like these pictures they did for ctenotrish:
That jellyfish-…
jstemwedel | October 15, 2007Still grading papers (different ones, but still) and I felt the sudden need to draw some bar graphs. Surely I'm not the only one who finds bar graphs soothing.
Am I?
In any case, we're at the halfway mark for the 2007 DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge, and it seemed like a good time to check the ScienceBloggers' progress. First, check out the progress-toward-goal graph:
We've taken some big strides -- there are now four blogs (Deep Sea News, Retrospectacle, evolgen, and Signout) that have exceeded their goals. Five others (The Questionable Authority, Omni Brain, Pharyngula, Thoughts from…
tqa | October 14, 2007
Late last week, the IRS released figures showing that the income gap in the United States is larger now than at any time since they began tracking that data in 1986, and may be worse now than at any time since the 1920s. The figures, which are based on 2005 tax returns, reveal that the richest 1% of Americans accounted for 21.2% of income, up from about 20.8% in 2000. The bottom 50% of families earned 12.8%, which is a drop from the 13% that they took home in 2000.
When the Wall Street Journal asked President Bush about the widening income gap, he said:
First of all, our society has had…
tqa | October 12, 2007
This week's DonorsChoose update is a short one. We're still doing well here - $2278 has been donated, which puts us well on our way to meeting our goal for the third time. I've added new proposals, again mostly from the Bronx, most of which are looking to fill basic classroom needs. (One request is for a copy machine and toner, because the entire school currently has one machine and no service contract. Another is for play-dough for a kindergarten classroom. A third is another request for pencils, crayons, and markers.)
In related news, Seed Media Group (the parent company of Scienceblogs…
jstemwedel | October 11, 2007I know it's been quiet here (I've been grading papers), but I wanted to give you a quick glimpse at the ScienceBloggers' progress to date on the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Here's the bar graph:
You'll notice that two blogs (Deep Sea News and Retrospectacle) have exceeded their goals and one (The Questionable Authority) is tantalizingly close.
And then there are the rest of us.
Do you suppose some additional prizes for donors would help? As it happens, Seed is offering some!
In addition to the $15,000 in matching funds that Seed is putting up for the challenges themselves, donors to…
jstemwedel | October 8, 2007I've just been told that Seed is putting up $15,000 in matching funds for the ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge, as part of the Seed Media Group Science Literacy Grants program.
As it stands, we've already raised just over $13,000. With the match from Seed, that becomes $26,000.
Go check out the challenges and help us take advantage of the full match!
jstemwedel | October 6, 2007Today is day 6 of our month-long DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2007, and here's the current progress:
Remember how Mike Dunford raised his initial target of $1588? After taking a moment to bask in the glow of that achievement, he raised his goal to $2000 -- and almost as quickly, his readers met that goal. He's raised it again to $2500 and is currently just $307 shy of that goal.
Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle met (and exceeded) her initial goal of $1000. w00t!
Deep Sea News is $51 away from its initial goal of $1100. So very close!
Dave Munger's two graphs argument prompted a flurry…
tqa | October 4, 2007
Earlier today, I raised the goal for my DonorsChoose challenge from $1588 to $2000. More of you donated, and within just a couple of hours we pulled to within $0.35 of the $2K mark. I've upped the goal by another $500. Since two of the proposals that I added earlier today are now fully funded, I'm adding one more. I was going to wait, but this one's a true heartbreaker - well beyond depressing. This proposal comes from P.S. 62 in the Bronx:
We have been instructed to cover up all of our blackboards which are old and ruined. As a result, I have to teach all of my lessons on chart paper that…
tqa | October 4, 2007
The response to my DonorsChoose challenge continues to be outstanding. Earlier today, we passed the $1,588 that I had set as my initial goal for the drive. Since there are still 27 days left in the challenge, I went back and increased the target to $2,000. If more of the projects are fully funded, I'll go back and add more to the challenge.
When I do add more proposals, I'm going to stick to the criteria that I used earlier today - schools with 85% or more of the students receiving free lunch, and proposals requesting very basic supplies. If you would prefer to fund proposals with a…
jstemwedel | October 4, 2007We're in the middle of the fourth day of the month-long DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2007, and thanks to his generous readers Mike Dunford has raised 100% of his initial goal, funding classroom projects that will impact 370 students.
The awesomeness of that is pretty breathtaking.
In light of Mike's impressive milestone, I thought this might be a good time to check in on the progress of the other ScienceBloggers participating in the challenge. Here are some "Top 5" lists:
Greatest % of goal funded:
The Questionable Authority (100)
Retrospectacle (45.2)
Uncertain Principles (32.6)
The…
tqa | October 4, 2007
I can't begin to thank the people who have donated to the DonorsChoose campaign enough. As of today - four days into the campaign - we've raised $1045. That's more than was contributed during all of last year's 15-day campaign. That's absolutely fantastic.
As of now, all four of the projects that I picked have been fully funded, but we haven't hit the goal yet. (Either someone donated to one of the projects through this campaign without receiving credit, or someone donated to one of the projects independently of the campaign.) At this point, we're still about $550 short of my goal for the…
jstemwedel | October 2, 2007Mike the Mad Biologist has mounted a challenge in the drive! Help him make some teachers and kids happy.
jstemwedel | October 2, 2007We're in day 2 of the ScienceBlogs Blogger Challenge, during which we're working with DonorsChoose to raise some money for classroom projects. The amount contributed by ScienceBlogs readers is creeping up on $4000, which is pretty impressive.
But it looks like the real competition may be for which blogger can offer readers the best incentive to donate.
I thought I was doing pretty well with my offer of poetry, sprog artwork, or a basic concepts post written to order. (Indeed, we're already on the hook for an illustrated poem.) But my SciBlings have upped the ante:
Deep Sea News is…
tqa | October 2, 2007
For those of you who haven't looked over at the sidebar, the DonorsChoose campaign is off to a start that far exceeded my wildest expectations. Yesterday, five donors kicked in an outstanding $687.06. That's more in one day than I had targeted for the entire drive last year, and enough to bring us more than 40% of the way to the total. To everyone who's donated so far, thank you very much.
Some of the other blogs at scienceblogs are offering incentives to donors. I'm trying to think of something, and promise that I'll get some sort of idea up in the next day or two. There are also some…
jstemwedel | October 1, 2007You know from my last post that we're working with DonorsChoose to raise some money for public school teachers who are trying to give their students the engaging educational experiences they deserve. You also know that our benevolent overlords at Seed will be randomly selecting some donors to receive nifty prizes (details about this to be posted as soon as I get them).
But I'd like to sweeten the deal by offering some incentive to everyone who donates to my challenge. Here's what you can get:
An original (and probably nerdy) poem, written just for you:
For a $10 donation, I'll write you a…
tqa | October 1, 2007
DonorsChoose is a fantastic organization. Individual teachers submit proposals for things they'd like to do in their classroom, but can't afford to do. People can go to DonorsChoose, pick projects that they like, and donate money directly to those projects. You truly know where your money is going to go, and you can see what a big difference even a small donation can make.
Last year, we had a major Scienceblogs funding drive for DonorsChoose. Our readers - you - were absolutely fantastic. In just 15 days, we managed to raise more than 23,000 dollars - not counting the 10,000 dollars in…