Received this nice letter from a teacher whose project we funded during our Donor’s Choose drive last Fall.

Dear Kevin Zelnio,

Thank you so much for helping to bring the ocean to our midwest classroom. The majority of our first grade students have never been to the ocean, and likely won’t be going there anytime soon. We have a great resource nearby, a very popular aquarium, but many of the kids’ families can’t afford a visit there. By funding this proposal, you have given students a chance to experience ocean life right here at our school. It is very exciting for students this age to be able to see and touch live ocean animals while learning about how they live in their natural habitat. This has been one of the most worthwhile proposals I’ve had funded for my classroom so far, giving students a chance to experience something they otherwise wouldn’t! Thanks to all of you! Thanks to those of you who are ocean bloggers who took up our cause! Thanks so much!!!! I encourage you to continue to support Donorschoose.org and students! (emphasis mine)

With gratitude,
Mrs. S.

Keep it coming guys! You are making a real impact in ocean education. If you think it does’t matter now, you don’t want to wait 30 years till this generation makes your laws to find out. Instill an appreciation of the ocean and its biodiversity NOW.

Students in Mrs. D’s 6th class in Arkansas sent a thank you note and pictures from their seafloor spreading kit funded from YOU who donated to our Oceans in the Classroom DonorsChoose challenge! Way to go! There are more classrooms in need understanding ocean science and its inhabitants. Go to our Oceans in the Classroom sidebar and find a project to give to. Even 10 or 20 dollars helps makes a difference!

Thank you so much for your generous donations to fund our Sea Floor Spreading Project. The students have enjoyed getting to us the model. They helped me set it up and get it running. It has certainly given them a hands on experience greater than reading about the Sea Floor Spreading that takes place under the ocean. The model has allowed the students to identify the points of interest on the sea floor that they have been studying. Seeing the model in motion, I believe has given the students a better understanding of how these landforms were created. Thanks again, for supplying these young students with hands-on materials to increase their learning.

With gratitude,
Mrs. D.

I know several people out there are looking to get their tax-deductible donations in before the end of the of the year. I’d like to take a moment out to remind our readers that there are some great ocean science educational projects on our Oceans in the Classroom Donor’s Choose page. You can see the tremendous success the ocean blogging community has had in our sidebar. We’ve impacted over 1180 students and the real number is MUCH MORE than that since most of the materials can be reused several times. Additionally, our community has completely funded 12 projects and raised over $4700!! Let’s push it up over $5000 before year’s end.

We have two great ocean projects up there right now that need only a little support. Remember, your donation is tax-deductible and goes to help the most important cause – improving education in impoverished schools in OUR OWN COUNTRY. We might be one of the wealthiest nations, but that hasn’t trickled down to many of our schools.

1) “Bring the oceans to our Midwest classroom!” will fund ocean science activities for 80 first graders at a high poverty school in Minnesota. These students will learn about sharks from an experienced aquarium educator in an assembly. It is these experiences that cement a sense of wonder for our oceans. Being as landlocked and (literally) snowed in as possible in Minnesota, these children do not have the opportunity to learn this intimately otherwise, unless you give them this experience! This project only need $195 to complete it.

2) “Oceans of Learning” seeks out to build an awesome library of books, music CDs, toys, puzzles and art supplies for project-based learning. This project will impact 22 kindergarteners from a moderate poverty school in Texas immediately, but the materials can all be reused each semester potentially impacting hundreds of students over the lifetime of the supplies. Mrs. G needs $528 and has been waiting since September to get this project funded! Let’s make the oceans a reality for her students!

As an incentive, if you make a donation between now and when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve AND leave a comment here I will send you a random ocean or marine invertebrate book from my personal collection.

Ocean bloggers and readers are amazing! We managed to raise over $4600 for classrooms all around the country, impacted 980 students immediately, but most of these projects had materials that will be used for future classes. Thus, your impact will go much much further. Give yourselves round of applause!

As you know HP challenged us to raise over $2000 and we succeeded. Specal thanks go out to the readers of Southern Fried of Science, who made several key 11th hour donations that helped us reach our goals. HP owned up their word and donated another $2200 to Oceans in the Classroom. If you made a donation during the challenge, you should have received or will receive a gift code to use on Donor’s Choose projects. Craig and I added a few more initiatives and we hope you go to Oceans in the Classroom and fund some of the great classroom ocean learning projects.

We will be keeping the widget up and encouraging donation year-round. Education is very important to all the ocean bloggers out there and obviously it is very important to you, the readers! We encourage every ocean blogger out there to put this widget up on the blog and poke their readers to donate every now and then. This isn’t about us, its about our community helping out in one the most important ways possible., through helping cash-strapped schools and inspiring our youth.

We need to reach $2000 by Sunday! If we reach this goal, HP will give us another $2000 to donate for Oceans in the Classroom! Can I make more clear?

THIS IS HUGE!!1!!1!!!!

$2000 will a looooooooooooooong way for ocean education and reach many students. But if we don’t reach $2000 on our own, we won’t get that extra $2000. Craig and I would hate to do this, but we will soon be forced to unleash the crabs from hell on our readers to gently rip off your flesh in our deep sea tortrarium. We really don’t want it to come to this guys. We like our readers, you are great! Please don’t let us feed you to the flesh eating crabs. Just look at at what they did to this poor little pig!

Within short time, the challenges form  Eric H. and Brian from Sandshack were met.  A big thanks  goes to both of them once again for helping us out in the Donor’s Choose challenge.  Another big thanks goes to Matthew H. for a big $135 donation!

HP is providing an additional incentive to you to donate.  If we reach $2000 then we stand to receive an $2000 in additional funding from HP but we only have till this Sunday to do this.  We only need $751 to do this.  Imagine us getting to fund several additional classrooms.

A good start is our Experiencing Seafloor Spreading project that needs a mere $370.  Or better yet donate the $770 needed to send the children to the Maritime Museum (Ahoy Mate!) and simultaneously fund a classroom and meet our $2000 goal.

We are down to the wire here and we really need your help!

Craig’s last challenge was met swiftly thanks to matching contributions from Brian Linton, founder of Sandshack, and Eric Heupel! You guys are rock stars! Not only that but fully funded the invertebrate aquarium project for Mrs. B’s classroom in Texas. Dr. H from Alaska finished off the proposal but it was a combined effort with 8 other fabulous donors. Ocean blog readers are an amazing crew that really value education and put their money where their mouth is! Here is a thank you letter from Mrs. B:

“Dear Christopher, Dr. H, Peter, Timothy, Jeanne, Eric, Jannel & Janet and Anonymous Donor,
I am overwhelmed by the generosity of others. The invertebrate salt water tank was just a dream I put on a wish list and now the dream will come true thanks to people like you. Being able to share the variety of fascinating marine organisms that live in the sea with my students will be wonderful. Being able to explain to them that these things are here because of kind and giving individuals from all over the United States will allow me to add a valuable lesson about philanthropy too.

I am grateful for the organisms and other items of my list and for your show of support for teachers, for students and for spreading the joy and knowledge about our oceans. Your have inspired me and invigorated my spirit. You have touched the lives of my students and like the pebble in the pond, started little ripples that will continue on in ways and directions we may not even know or be able to predict. Thank you doesn’t seem like enough but please accept this very big TEXAS-SIZED THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH!!!!

With gratitude,
Mrs. B.”

I for one cannot wait to see photos of those kids setting up and enjoying their new aquarium. The power of observation is an art form that will benefit these children greatly throughout their lives. Not only will this enrich the education of 114 students, but EVERY YEAR another 100+ students will be learning about ocean life as long as that aquarium is maintained!

Because people who care about the ocean are so awesome Southern Fried Science has posted another donation match challenge!

“Our 3,000 commenter is Kevin Z, from Deep Sea News. As a reward, Southern Fried Science will match dollar for dollar the next $75 donated to Deep Sea News’ Oceans in the Classroom Initiative. “

Really, this challenge isn’t about Deep Sea News. It is about ocean bloggers pulling together to help ocean education in cash strapped schools. We couldn’t have bagged in OVER $1200 if it wasn’t for the best readership in the blogosphere! You guys are the rock stars, but there is so much more we can do and every $10 or $100 helps. Now your effort will be doubled up to the next $75 thanks to the tubular trio at Southern Fried Science.

Here is the roll call of the fabulous ocean bloggers supporting this initiative:
The Right Blue
Memories of Island and Ocean Life
The Drop-In to Moss Landing Marine Labs
Southern Fried Science
The Other 95% (Eric H is revealing a new molluscan trading card each time a proposal gets funded!)
Squid A Day (She will post squid cartoons for every funded project!)
Matt’s Marine Music Medley

On twitter, the message has been spread by:
@eclecticechoes
@oystersgarter
@kejames
@drugmonkeyblog
@sciwo
@SFriedScientist
@DonorsChoose
@NMNH
@therightblue
@rmacpherson
@kwing
@jebyrnes
@NerdyChristie
@DCShoutOuts
@BraveBlueWords
@petnoyer

Corporate funders:
Sandshack
Bradley Photographic
Royal Bank of Canada Blue Water Project
HP

Don’t see your name on any of these lists? What are you waiting for! Donate and spread the word! Drop me a line to let me know so I can thank you properly!

Lots of excitement in the last 24 hours.  Christopher gave $100, Kate gave $54,  and Dana gave $100.  Thanks also go to Peter, Erin, Sarah, and Michael for sizable donations.  But we still have a ways to go.

Eric Heupel as agreed to match dollar for dollar for the next $50 dollars.  That is a two for one special people!  So go make your donation count double.  The Nemo in the Classroom project is just $39 away from funding. Stay tuned because more announcements are soon.  Click on the Donor’s Choose banner on the right to get the donation process going.

UPDATE:  Brian from SandShack has put forth an additional challenge.  He and SandShack will match $70 dollar for dollar.  So the next $120, thanks to Brian and Eric, will be matched.  Keep in mind these are challenges to you and you have the opportunity to make your donation count double.

UPDATE: Thanks to Steve and Jason for donating and meeting Eric’s challenge!  That is $100 raised for the students!

That is all we need to fund another project.  Invertebrates in My Tank requires just $139 to  fully fund a Texas 5th grade Gifted and Talented class to develop a salt water aquarium system and stock it with varied invertebrates.

So here is the challenge to you.  I need one person to step up to the plate and donate $70.  That person will only do so as a matching challenge, i.e. donate $70 only if others cough up the same amount.

Who is going to accept my challenge?  Who is going to be the hero? If you are that person comment below.

And because donations have slacked off, here is another of the worst music videos of all time.

Here it is Saturday at 5pm and we still are short of our goal to fund these projects.  I warned people that Kevin and I would hijack the blog and make people regret not opening their wallets.  So below is what you get.  Sure you could not play the video…just go about your life.  But, you have to know, don’t you? You have to know how bad it is.  You’ll play it and then you’ll know.

Of course you know how to make it stop.