Yesterday officially kicked off the Science Bloggers for Students Challenge at DonorsChoose. What is DonorsChoose, you ask? Simply put, it's an organization that allows school teachers to request funds for programs they'd like to implement in their classroom. With the economy in its most dire state since I can remember, budget cuts have led to more and more educational programs being cut. Who suffers? The kids of course!! DonorsChoose provides a way for us, the general public (and scientists!), to directly affect the ability of kids to learn in the classroom. As a huge proponent of education, I happen to think this is a pretty friggin' awesome idea.

So what's our role in all of this? Well, the science blogging community has gotten together to support this rather awesome idea (tainted with a friendly competitive edge, of course ;-). You, as a science blog reader/lurker/commenter, can visit our giving pages and choose from multiple projects we've selected as our "favorites". I personally have chosen three projects to support, all listed on my giving page, which can be accessed from my blog anytime via the DonorsChoose widget under "Awesome Stuff" (lower right).

The first is "Oh! Rats!", which will provide rats for dissection to junior high school students in Jonesboro, Arkansas. This is the most urgent project I have posted, with only 16 days left to donate before the opportunity expires*! I have also chosen two projects that focus on the visual and performing arts, for which I'm as passionate about as science. Each of these projects are from high poverty schools, making them even closer to my heart. "Math, Writing and Art!" is requesting art books and folders to display the math-related artwork of elementary students in Dallas, Texas. And "Don't be a 'Twit'" is requesting two sets of Roald Dahl scripts for a drama class at a fine arts charter school in San Francisco, CA. Don't even get me started on how any school can't afford art books or folders, or how a fine arts school can't cover the funding for play scripts...and we can do something about this!!!

So go visit my DonorChoose page and start giving!!!!!

*If a project expires without being funded, you can choose where the funds go instead.