Donors Choose is a charity organization that allows teachers to post requests for supplies that they can’t afford and allows donors to (get this!) choose which teachers to donate to. Some requests are for basic school supplies, others are for computers or video cameras or other big-ticket items that a teacher’s district can’t afford. It’s a great organization, and you should go check out the projects and donate to the most deserving.

But if I may suggest one to donate to, my wife is a physics teacher and she recently put in a request at Donors Choose for funding to buy motion detectors for her physics classes. She uses these in a bunch of different projects, and they are great for showing students how motion in the real world can be recorded as data on a graph. Making that connection – that graphs actually mean something – is a cornerstone of science, and she (and her students, and I) would be eternally grateful if you donated to her project. Thanks in advance!