In 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).

This is nice progress … but we have 8 more days until the drive wraps up on October 31, and I think we can do more.

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A 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:

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Regular 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:

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Still 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 Kansas, and Thus Spake Zuska) are more than halfway to their goals.
The other eleven blogs participating in the drive are less than halfway to their goals, though, and some could really use some love right about now.
A few more bar graphs with some top-5 lists:

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I 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!

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I’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!

Today is day 6 of our month-long DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2007, and here’s the current progress:

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