Piedmont Environment and Education Foundation
The Piedmont Environment and Education Foundation (PEEF) is a new nonprofit organization chartered in the State of Maryland. Seed funding for the Foundation has been donated by the Mirant Corporation. Additional funding for PEEF will be provided by Mirant as well as through fundraising spearheaded by the Sugarloaf Citizens Association. Our goal is to raise several hundred thousand dollars over the next several years to act as an endowment for (as the name of the organization implies) educational programs for middle and secondary schools in the District of Columbia and suburban Maryland.
PEEF plans to make available to school groups and individual teachers small grants that can be used in their classrooms to initiate or reinforce fundamental ideas in environmental science. Ideally, these grants will enable field work for students and teachers and other hands-on experieinces. We plan to work with manufacturers of laboratory equipment and supplies suitable for measurement at this educational level. Our goal is to provide not only "canned" experimental systems with suggested lesson plans, but also will appeal to the creativity of both the students and their teachers in designing and performing well crafted experiments.
Our board of directors includes representatives of the stakeholder organizations (Mirant and Sugarloaf) as well as environmental science educators at both the secondary and University levels. As the organization matures, our mission and our methods will certainly evolve, but we think that funds raised over these first few years will deliver a valuable jump start for raising environmental awareness for environmental problems as local as the stream that runs by the school or as global as climate change.
Your support for this ride will help get PEEF the start it needs to succeed. 100% of the funds pledged in support of this ride will be used to directly support environmental education programs. As a fledging organization, PEEF relies completely on volunteer and pro bono efforts.
Heard enough, and ready to make a pledge? Good! Click Here.
