Each year, Deep Sea news joins science blogs from all corners of the internet, big and small, in helping to fund small classroom projects and raise awareness for the lack of ocean science in the United State’s classrooms. Personally, this means a lot to me every year and traditionally our readers pull through and show their generosity well! In the 4 years we have participated, we raised well over $10,000 for schools impacting over 100 classrooms and thousands of students (many of the supplies are reusable too!).
Most of these schools are impoverished and I don’t think I need to tell anyone how bad the financial situation is this year, but many states are slashing educational funding and laying off teachers just to keep operating at the minimal expense. This is so important to me, not just because I care deeply about education and learning about the ocean. These impoverished schools are the schools I am sending my son to, and next year my daughter. These impoverished families – who cannot afford school supplies, have jobless parents and qualify for free lunches – is my family. We are thankful to not have to send my son $2 every for school lunches, but my wife and I know that every little activity they do in Kindergarten is so vital to facilitating his first impressions of school. He loves school so much and can’t wait to show us everything he makes.
We never ask anything of our readers, we do not display annoying ads and time after time we get glowing comments, emails, tweets, FB messages from you all – of which we SO thankful for. (Although, please feel free to leave me and my family a donation via paypal :). 5 months without a regular salary has been tough on us.) But during the next two and a half weeks we hope you show your generosity and make tax-deductible donation to an ocean science and learning school project of your choice on our Donor’s Choose giving page.
Over the course of this drive, lasting until October 20, we’ll be reminding you about how much it means to support our schools and give our love of the ocean to those who may not have access to the basic resources. Why not start now by finishing off this great classroom project on Acid Seas for a high poverty high school in Dickinson, Tennessee. These children are landlocked, yet their teacher wants to take the extra effort for her class to conduct a simple experiment on how pH affects zooplankton. Simple, but with a powerful message that will hopefully resonate with students who mostly go on to careers in the farm & agricultural industry. Only $97 is needed to fund it too!
