This a complicated question without a single answer – but there is no question that we need to do everything we can to get all the young’uns hooked on science. It is especially important to make science accessible (and fun!) for underrepresented groups – African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, LBGTQ youth, first-generation college students…the list goes on. “Diversity” means a lot of things, and all of those definitions are important. I speak from personal experience here, as a first-generation college student coming from a literal blue collar family (my dad wears a blue jumpsuit with a name patch to work – and he is not wearing it in the ironic hipster way).

Today I write with a simple request: Help low income, rural students experience the joy of marine science, with a donation to the LUMCON scholarship fund.

Here at Deep Sea News we have a strong tradition of raising money (and awareness!) for worthy causes. For a time we ran annual campaigns to fund ocean education in K-12 classrooms through the Donors Choose program – Kevin Zelnio and our friends at Southern Fried Science helped us raise over $4800 in 2009 to support >1500 students in classrooms across the country.

Its high time we reach out again, and this time I personally want to highlight the amazing programs at LUMCON (The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, a marine station located at the tip of the boot in Louisiana). LUMCON is the wonderful institution where Dr. M. has just taken the reins as executive director, and they are doing a big push to establish a scholarship fund for field programs aimed at K-12 students and undergraduates (again, these are rural, low-income students without the financial capability to experience the joy of the ocean).

Why is the LUMCON fund so important? Because it is the literal field course that transformed our own Dr. M from a rural Arkansas kid to a fancy executive director and badass marine scientist.

To reiterate: By supporting the LUMCON fund, you can directly help transform this scraggly youth (Dr. M when he had hair)

Our Executive Director, Dr. Craig McClain @DrCraigMc #FlashbackFriday #deepsn #LUMCONscience pic.twitter.com/eTJCzuFNoO

— LUMCON (@LUMCONscience) February 3, 2017

Into this high-powered marine scientist:

Any amount will help support a student – $10, $20, $100 or whatever you can spare – donate for a friend, donate because you love the ocean, donate because you wish you had this opportunity when you were younger!

So help get these students out on a boat, help them stick their hands in the mud! It just might transform them into a scientist! (…again, speaking from experience here. I love mud so much.)

Please fund a student and break barriers! #LUMCONscience #summerprogram https://t.co/A6enHR8ZdD pic.twitter.com/ksEhFnyMh3

— LUMCON (@LUMCONscience) February 24, 2017

Disclaimer: I have written this post solely under my own volition (without any influence from Dr. M, apart from our undying blog family love). He has had no input or editorial control over what I have written, and is very proper about keeping his official LUMCON duties separate from DSN. But I cannot be controlled! Mwahahaha.

The post Support LUMCON ocean scholarships, and get rural, low-income kids hooked on marine science! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

A little sentimental, but hey its Christmas time. The Tank Bangers donates proceeds of buying this song to the various groups shown at 5:40 in the video. While I do not support all those groups personally, I would like to add Oceana and The Coral Reef Alliance as conservation groups who have a high impact dollar for donation dollar. No doubt there are others!

The post TGIF – Our Blue (The Tank Bangers) first appeared on Deep Sea News.

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.

The post Thank You for Caring About Ocean Education! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

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!

The post Donate Or We’ll Let Loose the Crabs from Hell! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

“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!

The post People Who Care About the Ocean are Awesome! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

When we all funded “X”, Eric revealed the “Y”:

Making Waves, Oceans and Landforms – Ace of Diamonds

Coral Reef Flipbooks – Queen of Hearts

Waders for Water Quality Studies and More – Jack of Diamonds

You will have to go there to check out the cards and the excellent, well-written posts that accompany them! Eric worked very hard on these and any fan of the Invertebrata will be impressed. We’ll keep a running list of the cards as more projects get funded. Just another reason to give to the Ocean in the Classroom Challenge! Just imagine if we were able to fund 52 PROJECTS!!!

Get out your wallets and help out struggling teachers and impressionable youth. I have, and so have many others including Danna S, Dr. H, Jarrett B, Christina K and Michael R, as well as Craig and Tim who made good on their challenges. The Moss Landing Marine Lab Blog has also joined in the fray with this great post!

“A major part of science is collaboration, because some projects require more effort, resources, or people than one lab can handle.  Collaborating allows us to tackle bigger projects and tasks than what would otherwise be possible.  The folks at Deep Sea News organized a collaboration with many other marine science blogs to sponsor support of K-12 marine science education.”

Let’s keep the momentum going. If you haven’t donated yet, what is holding you back? What reservations do you have? Lack of money? Do you hate schools or teachers? Hate children? Hate the ocean? Why hate? Just love! Perhaps if you fully fund a project yourself you will become filled with the love and excitement and enthusiasm for the ever-so-important 71% of of our planet’s surface that these kids should have the opportunity to feel when they are out on a tall ship for the first time hoisting ropes, singing shanties, pulling in plankton nets and learning how our oceans work!

The post Behold the Jack of Diamonds! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Seriously though if we don’t get this project funded bad things might happen here at DSN. Something like this…

The post Donor’s Choose Challenge: A Ways to Go first appeared on Deep Sea News.