Geo-blogger Maria Blumm at the Green Gabbro blog is running a donations challenge through the Donors Choose site to help public school teachers who are asking for geology materials or support for their classes. According to Maria, "Donors Choose [right] is a nonprofit organization designed to help you help schools tackle the projects you think are important. They gather proposals from public school teachers, and handle all the money stuff; you pick out the proposals that seem most compelling, and provide students with desperately-needed educational resources."
Maria's highlighted several projects that will bring low-tech hands-on Earth science to kids across the country: rock and mineral kits, stream tables, and basic lab supplies like notebooks and safety goggles.
"All of the projects are at high poverty schools - at least 40% of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, meaning that their families earn 130% or less of the federal poverty line. These are not classrooms where parents will chip in to buy the latest educational doohickeys; these are classrooms where parents can barely afford pencils."
Green Gabbro is competing with others at the Scienceblogs.com blog aggregation site in a friendly competition and doing remarkably well against some of the big name blogs in other fields. She writes a great blog (did you read her 'metamorphic petrology of ice cream' analysis? It's a classic) and has a great cause here.