We’re nearly to the halfway mark (in terms of time) on Blogger Challenge 2008 and the mommy bloggers are still leaving us in their dust. We’ve told you about the school kids you could help by donating to our challenges, we’ve offered small incentives (and big incentives).
Today, the news comes from our benevolent overlords at Seed that they’d like to help us coax some donations from you by offering more prizes.
Category Archives: Kids and science
DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2008: some BIG incentives.
In a lot of ways, the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge is a community endeavor. It is all about what you, our community of readers, can accomplish together for public school students and teachers in need. Also, it’s a great example of how citizens of the blogosphere think about community — not just a group of people clustered geographically, but people we’re connected to by common interests and values.
While you’re working together to make things better for school kids in classrooms across the fifty United States, you can also work together toward what Chad calls a ‘big incentive’. Chad is offering a ‘big incentive’ if donors get his challenge to its goal of $6,000, although it’s not quite clear at this point just what that ‘big incentive’ will be. The current contenders include Chad dancing like a monkey, slipping a dialogue with his dog into the abstract of his next peer-reviewed publication, or growing full mutton-chop whiskers.
Competitive git that I am, I figured I should offer some big incentives, too. In order to tell you about those, first I need to introduce you to my midlife crisis.
DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2008: more incentives for your donations.
Today is day 10 of Blogger Challenge 2008, in which generous ScienceBlogs readers help public school teachers come up with the funds to deliver the educational goods to their students. As I write this post, challenges mounted by ScienceBloggers have crossed the $10,000 mark.
Given that this money has come from 113 donors and that there are about a bajillion ScienceBlogs readers, I’m guessing there are some folks thinking about making a donation but hanging back from actually donating. My hope is that this post will give you that little push forward you might need.
Friday Sprog Blogging: another science fair contender.
At Casa Free-Ride, our science fair discussions take an unexpected turn:
Younger offspring: I want to do a science fair project, too.
Elder offspring: Hey, second graders don’t have to do science fair projects!
Younger offspring: But second graders get to do science fair projects if they want.
Dr. Free-Ride: Seriously, it’s not like the thirst for knowledge is restricted to the upper grades.
Talking a little later while the elder Free-Ride offspring was somewhere else, no doubt ruminating on the injustice of younger siblings:
DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2008: help fund these projects before time runs out!
We’re in the last hour of week one of Blogger Challenge 2008, and ScienceBlogs readers have already donated a respectable $8,999 to public school projects. Yay ScienceBlogs readers!
You know I’m offering you enticements to donate to my challenge, but tonight I want to point out some proposals in other ScienceBloggers’ challenges that need to be funded soon before the proposals expire.
Here they are, with the ones expiring soonest at the top:
DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2008: update (day 6).
(Kick off post here.)
I’m inspired by The World’s Fair to write this update in the style of Harper’s Index.
22: number of ScienceBlogs blogs that have so far mounted challenges.
8,480: dollars donated so far through those challenges
700 billion: the only number other than the year in a ScienceBlogs blogger’s challenge title
Blogger Challenge 2008 sprog thank-you art: dragonflies.
A generous donor who prefers to remain anonymous made a contribution to my challenge and requested some artwork from the sprogs. In particular, the donor requested dragonflies:
Many species are considered vulnerable or imperiled by the Nature Conservancy (Species Report Card) and it’s my next animal group to target for outreach and conservation. …
Please post the jpg image on your website for awareness of dragonflies… I don’t want any recognition for me. Please acknowledge the little artist with teh mad skillz though! We need entomologists to describe and name all the new species we are overlooking – maybe inspiration will happen with your readers and the bug-loving schoolkids:)
The sprogs and I offer our heartfelt thanks, and the pictures:
Friday Sprog Blogging: of skin and senators.
As I was kissing the sprogs goodnight last night:
Younger offspring: If we get boo-boos more than seven times, do we not heal any more?
Elder offspring: Huh?
Younger offspring: Well, if we have seven layers of skin*, once you get cut or scraped in the same place the seventh time, don’t you use the last layer? After that, don’t you run out of skin?
DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge 2008: more ScienceBloggers roll out challenges.
We’re in day 2 of our month-long drive to fund projects in public school classrooms across the U.S. As I write this post, the generous readers of ScienceBloggers have given a total of $5,589. And, since yesterday, challenges have been mounted by:
Dispatches from the Culture Wars (challenge here)
Signout (challenge here)
The World’s Fair (challenge here)
Zooillogix (challenge here)
Check out the ScienceBlog leaderboard to follow our progress. And thanks for being such a generous bunch of blog readers!
Fabulous prizes for your donation to my DonorsChoose challenge.
You already know 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).
As I did last year, I’m going sweeten the deal by offering some incentive to everyone who donates to my challenge. And I’m adding a few new options this time around. Here’s what you can get: