It starts with education. We“re not inspiring children. Somewhere down the line we forgot that science and engineering were creative, exciting, and rewarding”that they could achieve the impossible and change the world. We need to look at how we teach, test, and challenge children. I can see why No Child Left Behind is increasingly coming under fire. While its intentions are admirable, standardized tests dampen enthusiasm for education, curb creativity, and put people off science and engineering.

— James “he of the Bagless Vacuum Cleaner and Bladeless Fan” Dyson on America’s School Science Crisis

This is a request for support for my efforts in the Science Bloggers for Students challenge, a friendly month-long competition (10/10/2010 through 11/9/2010) between science blogs to see which can do the most to help low-income American classrooms on DonorsChoose.org. Pick a classroom project at MY GIVING PAGE to support. And help me beat the other bloggers! Whatever little bit you give helps.

Public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit, to violins for a school recital, to microscope slides for a biology class. DonorsChoose.org is a 501(c)3 charity incorporated in the State of New York. You will receive a gift receipt via email that can be used for your tax records.

Not surprisingly, I have signed up to help students in the area of Science and Mathematics. As Dyson points out above, it is pretty sad that our nation’s piddly education budget goes to propping up the administration of a glorified standardized testing system, a “one size fits all approach [which] is convenient but lazy.” This is not a substitute for actual teaching with proper resources on the part of qualified teachers and hands-on experimentation and creativity by students. Our future scientists and new ideas will not come from memorizing useless facts (and factoids) and sharpening #2 pencils for another standardized test, but from thinking free and taking risks under expert guidance.

Furthermore, it is beyond disheartening that teachers have to take the time out from teaching and their own personal lives to go online and reach out to us, i.e. neither the Department of Education nor parents of children in those specific schools, to beg for the most basic of teaching materials. I can’t tell you how mad I get when a state or local government’s first and immediate response to the threat of hard economic times is to slash school and library budgets, to the point of shutting these buildings down altogether. While that is a fight for another time, if you are as disgusted and worried as I am about America’s plummeting science rankings, please help out these kids. Please.

Here’s more incentive: HP has agreed to match all donations to Science Bloggers for Students up to $50,000. That’s right  every donation to my Giving Page will be doubled! And I won’t say anything bad about our HP color laser printer for a good long while!

So, what are you waiting for? Go HERE and give! And big ups to all those who have given already; thanks to you, Team Maitri has raised $316 (make that $316 x 2 = $632) before the official challenge has even begun. You rock!

As in “Things that go through Maitri’s head. And erupt out the back of her skull because they just don’t compute.”

Exhibit A: A friend took this picture and added it to her photo gallery of Horrifying Frosting. It sure qualifies. Behold, mes amies, the 9/11 WTC cake.

Things that went kapwing! through my head:

1) A vision of someone eating this tone-deaf consumer abomination, stuffing their face with a handful of cake and OH SO DELICIOUS PATRIOTIC FROSTING while crying about all those people who suffered and died in the buildings. They can’t have cake. The horror OMNOMNOM. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, I say. Save me the slice that says “Hereo’s” in intestinal red.

2) I watch the occasional episode of Ace Of Cakes and that other one, Cake Mafia or whatever you call it. Cake decoration is an art, except that I have seen more handwashing in sculpture studios than I have in these bakeries. Perhaps this was Cakey McFrosty’s way of expressing sorrow and outrage through his or her chosen art form. *blink blink* WTF, who are we kidding, it’s cake, for crying out loud. And there are very few instances of good tragicommemorative actual-art as it is.

3) “And our GIGANTIC BILLOWING Flag was still There!” Well, it has to be that big to hold 64 stars! (I’m always the last to know these things. Who are we declaring war on and annexing now?) This is what’s wrong with America today.

4) Stop looking. Walk away. Support your local firefighters.

I could stare at this painting in its 96 x 72 in. glory for hours. So soft, three-dimensional in its transparency and layering and mildly spooky, and thus comforting. Points for tasteful use of desi colors.

The Earth may be a man, but which one? Read The Granite Controversy: Neptunism vs. Plutonism at David Bressan’s excellent History Of Geology blog.

An alternative, even contrasting theory to [Abraham Gottlob] Werner’s Neptunism was proposed by the English naturalist James Hutton: primordial rocks, and their exposure, are due the effect of magmatic intrusions and eruptions. This theory was named after the Roman god of the underworld Plutonism. The resulting conflict divided geologists and an intense research begun to solve the riddle of rock formation.