ScienceBlogs readers have raised $14,913.09 to help science teachers get the materials they need for engaging explorations of magnets, marine biology, electricity, and evolution. You’ve helped fund classroom equipment and field trips. You’ve helped stack the deck toward a future where fewer people are scared by science and more people are involved in conversations about science.
But we have the rest of today to do just a bit more.
DonorsChoose is generously rewarding bloggers who meet their Bloggers Challenge goals with DonorsChoose gift certificates worth 10% of the total amount they raise. These aren’t gift certificates they can spend on CDs or fancy dinners or airplane tickets — they’re only good for funding more teachers’ proposals at DonorsChoose. Luckily, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do here.
Most of us with bloggers challenges in this drive set our goals too high. (This is not to suggest at all that we overestimated you or that you folks let us down — we just hadn’t done a drive like this before, so we were pulling numbers out of the air.) But there are a few challenges that I think we can — and should — meet. Really, they’re so close, it would be a pity not to fund them. Here’s the rundown:
Category Archives: Kids and science
Friday Sprog Blogging: a map of the Earth.
Younger offspring: I drew this picture of the Earth!
Dr. Free-Ride: Wow, that’s quite a picture. Will you tell me what’s going on in it?
Younger offspring: Yes, but first scan it in.
Dr. Free-Ride: Hmm. Is it maybe not a coincidence that you’re bringing home a picture like this on a Thursday night?
Using “Angels” to patch leaks in the pipeline.
Interesting news from Japan: Tohoku University has decided to launch an outreach effort to encourage more girls to pursue science. Rather than relying on secondary school science classes to whip up enthusiam for science, the university is recruiting its own women graduate students in the sciences to serve as role models and mentors.
From the Yomiuri Shimbun:
Friday Sprog Blogging: the school year in review.
Dr. Free-Ride: Hey, how was Nature Study today?
Younger offspring: We went on a nature walk.
Dr. Free-Ride: What kind of nature did you see?
Younger offspring: We didn’t see any.
Dr. Free-Ride: A nature walk without any nature?
Younger offspring: Uh huh.
Dr. Free-Ride: Isn’t that just a walk?
Sounds better than pinching yourself.
Younger offspring offers a way to distinguish dreaming from conscious experience:
I thought I was really awake, so I reached up to touch a cloud, but instead of feeling fuzzy like a cloud would feel, it was like touching an empty space. So that’s how you can tell if you’re dreaming, if you touch the clouds and they feel like empty space.
The child hasn’t read Descartes yet, but we’ve got all summer.
Advanced Nature Study (now with splicing!)
Younger offspring did not, to my knowledge, watch of listen to the State of the Union address wherein President Bush called for legislation prohibiting the creation of human-animal hybrids. Indeed, it’s not even clear that this wee beastie has any human DNA in it. (With recessive traits, it can be hard to tell.) Yet it’s hard not to think this specimen is treading on ethically dangerous ground:
Younger offspring’s explanation of this image, plus an image from Elder offspring that calls out for your interpretation, below the fold.
Friday Sprog Blogging: what does the “2” stand for?
Dr. Free-Ride: So, I found a little café table for the back yard.
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: A good one, or one that’s going to fall apart?
Dr. Free-Ride: Well, I made a point of getting a cast-iron one rather than one made of elemental sodium; those aren’t so weather-proof.
Elder offspring: You know, you still have to figure out a sprog blog for tomorrow.
Dr. Free-Ride: Yeah, don’t worry, we’ll start asking you questions in a moment.
Seemingly random movie recommendation.
As this week’s “Friday Sprog Blogging” was going to press:
Younger offspring: Here’s another picture for you to use.
Dr. Free-Ride: It’s nice, but does it have anything to do with insects?
Younger offspring: No … but you could still blog about it.
Dr. Free-Ride: I suppose …
Friday Sprog Blogging: insects.
Younger offspring: (Singing, to the tune of “Head and Shoulders”) Head and thorax, abdomen, abdomen.
Head and thorax, abdomen, abdome-e-e-en.
Bulgy eyes and antennae.
Head and thorax, abdomen, abdomen!
Dr. Free-Ride: Let me guess: you’ve been learning about insects?
Younger offspring: Uh huh!
Friday Sprog Blogging: the proper care and watering of plants.
A conversation while walking home from school with the elder Free-Ride offspring:
Elder offspring: (Veering off the sidewalk toward a bougainvillea) Hello! How are you today?
Dr. Free-Ride: Hey, what are you doing?
Elder offspring: I’m just talking to the plants.
Dr. Free-Ride: Why are you doing that?
Elder offspring: Some people think talking to plants is good for the plants.
Dr. Free-Ride: Child, you’d be amazed at what some people think.