Jess is looking for posts about outreach that we've done. I'd like to talk about outreach that other people have done.
This month, many of the bloggers here at Sb have been participating in Donors Choose, a campaign to raise money for schools. October is a crazy month for anyone who goes to the Geological Society of America meeting, so I teamed up with Highly Allochthonous and Eruptions in the hope that, between the three blogs, we'd be able to scare up some support for K-12 geoscience education.
October's over tomorrow, and the geobloggers' challenge has raised more money than any other challenge here at Science Blogs. $8,288. 40 donors. 1218 students reached. Last week, I had to go searching for new geoscience-related projects to support, because so many of the original projects had already been completely funded.
I'm amazed, and delighted. I mean, I hardly did anything. Anne Jefferson somehow managed to promote five projects during Earth Science Week and encouraged members of the Earth Science Women's Network to donate, even though Anne was an author on four GSA abstracts and a session organizer. Many other geobloggers and geotweeters spread the word about projects, as well. (I apologize for not keeping track of everyone!) And then, when we posted about projects, you were incredibly generous.
A large portion of that $8288 comes from HP's donation, divided amongst the various challenges based on how much was donated. Anyone who donated to the challenge will get to decide how that money is allocated. You'll get a "giving card" from DonorsChoose in November, and then you'll get to decide which projects to fund. When I find out how those work in detail, I'll post. (If it would make life easier, I'd be willing to sort through the various projects and list some that deal with rocks, water, weather, etc., so you don't have to dig through all the projects yourself.)
And I'm feeling a big guilty for not offering any really cool stuff to donors. I'll help Anne and Chris write posts for the Earth Science Week projects, but I feel like I ought to do something else. So... any suggestions (that don't involve doing something that would embarrass my mother)? (We've got snow already, so I can't promise to go hunting for cool rocks and minerals for your own teaching collection. But I could offer to send people samples of the rock-most-likely-to-be-mistaken-for-a-meteorite, at least by residents of Durango. But I can't promise too many of those.)
(Oh, and if you have been meaning to participate in the challenge, you've got one more day.)