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Do you remember the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge? As a super little kid, I remember getting taken to the library each week in the summer. I’d check out books – usually the max number I was allowed – and then when I brought them back some nice lady behind a folding table would handwrite the title of the books I’d read onto a special card I had to be very careful not to lose. Some weeks, when I was at the library, we’d watch a movie (this was how I first saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and sometimes there would even be balloons (I was like 6, so balloons were kind of awesome).

As an adult, I don’t need the Scholastic to remind me to read. Those summer reading lists turned me into a lifelong reader.

So here’s my question, if summer reading can make someone a lifelong reader, can summer science make someone a lifelong sciencer? (OK, I know that isn’t a word, but it should be)

This summer, from June 4 to Sept 4, we are running the CosmoQuest Summer (Planetary) Science Challenge.

All summer long we encourage you to attend hangouts and do science and log your activities by sharing with the hashtag #SummerOfSci At the end of the summer we’ll be giving our prizes to those who do the most to map out other worlds on CosmoQuest. As of the time of this writing, prizes include Celestron binoculars: Cometron 7×50 binoculars (x4) and SkyMaster 15×70 binoculars (x3).

A lot of reading challenges encourage people to read a chapter a day. Instead of that, can we get you to classify a dozen images a day? That’s 4 each for the Moon, Mercury, Mars, and Vesta (because not everything can begin with M).