Don’t miss your (very good) chance at today’s drawing!

As this is published (about 10 AM Eastern time) there are two hours left before the noon deadline for the last of the drawings for T-shirts, books, mugs, and subscriptions to Seed to thank you for your donation to our DonorChoose Blogger Challenge.
All you have to do is make a donation to one (or more) of those challenges, then forward your email confirmation from DonorsChoose to scienceblogs@gmail.com. I’m told that at present, the chances for each entrant in the drawing of being drawn for a prize are very, very good.
Haven’t made a donation yet? Here are three challenges that are within $100 of meeting their goals. Wrap them up and get your chance at a nice reward from Seed:
Aetiology needs $24
On Being a Scientist and a Woman needs $83
The Questionable Authority needs $88
The clock’s ticking — why are you still here?

Blogger Challenge 2007 sprog thank-you art + poem: reptiles.

Jennifer is another reader who made a generous donation to one of the projects in my challenge. She wrote:

I felt like I definitely needed
a piece of art work from your very talented crew. … I’d like
something in the style of Dr. Seuss about reptiles with some
accompanying artwork.

I’ve done my best to get my Seuss on. (This is one of those instances where it’s clear how much more talented my offspring are than I!) This goes out to Jennifer with our sincere thanks for her donation.

Continue reading

Blogger Challenge 2007 sprog thank-you art + poem: the brain.

Ewan 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!

Continue reading

Blogger Challenge 2007 sprog thank-you art: insects.

Dan 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.

Continue reading

Blogger Challenge update (day 23): where we are now, and where we can go.

In the last 22.5 days, ScienceBloggers and their generous readers have:

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.

Continue reading

Blogger Challenge 2007 sprog thank-you art: seascape.

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:

Continue reading

Blogger Challenge 2007: the halfway mark.

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:

Continue reading