For the past couple of weeks I’ve been participating in a science blogger challenge with Donors Choose, to raise as much money as we can to go to classrooms that need science equipment.

The challenge ends Saturday at midnight Eastern US time. I just got a note from the folks at Donors Choose saying that from now until then, every dollar donated will be matched by their Board of Directors! This is a great chance to double the amount of money given to children who need to learn science in school. Once all the donations are in, the folks at Donors Choose will take the total amount and divide it by the number of people who donated. You will then receive a gift code via email that will allow you to give that amount to the classroom of your choice. So if the total is $15,000, and 150 people donated, then everyone gets a $100 gift code to donate, no matter how much you personally gave.

If you want more info you can read my original post about the challenge, or just go to the Donors Choose page I’ve set up.

The sidebar of my blog (over on the right) has a widget that says how much we’ve raised here at Bad Astronomy so far (nearly $4000 as I write this, much more than last year [UPDATE (18:30 Mountain time) Holy mackerel! Since I posted this, we're over $5k! Thanks everyone!]). To everyone who has donated and to everyone who will: my very large thanks. And I’m an astronomer, so "very large" to me is vast indeed. And for the kids who get to benefit from it, it’s even bigger.