About SEER

     In 1994, The Pew Charitable Trusts (Trusts) commissioned a study designed to gather baseline information about the status of environmental education (EE) in the U.S., identify the nation's major education reform initiatives; explore the potential added value that EE might bring to the reform movement; and provide an overview of institutional needs and the factors that limited the broader dissemination of EE programs in the school setting. The results of this research were summarized in a 1995 reported titled, Pieces of a Puzzle: An Overview of the Status of Environmental Education in the United States.
     Based on the results of this study, in 1995 the Trusts decided to fund the establishment of the State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER). The Trusts identified the Council of Chief State School Officers as the administrator of the grant funding.
     In December 1995, the 11 original state education department members of SEER met and began to plan how they could most effectively work together to strengthen and expand state-level efforts to incorporate EE into classroom instruction.
     Soon thereafter, SEER's membership expanded to 12 state members including departments of education from: California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. In 2001, the Trusts provided additional funding that allowed SEER to add four additional state departments of education from: Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, and South Carolina.
      The lead representatives of SEER’s founding member agencies included:

• William Andrews, California Department of Education
• Don Hollums and Mary Gromko, Colorado Department of Education
• Kathy Shea Abrams, Florida Department of Education
• Robert Moore, Georgia Department of Education
• Deron Davis, Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division
• Kevin Collins, Idaho Department of Education
• Donny Roush, Idaho Environmental Education Association
• Duane Toomson and Kathy McKee, Iowa Department of Education
• Jane Eller, Kentucky Environmental Education Council
• Gary Heath, Maryland State Department of Education
• Gregg Swanzey and Polly Zajac, Massachusetts Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance
• Melissa Griffiths, Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
• Kathleen Lundgren, Minnesota Department of Education
• Pam Landers, Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance
• Bruce Marganoff and Arthur Mitchell, New Jersey Department of Education
• John Hug, Ohio Department of Education
• Patricia Vathis and Dean Steinhart, Pennsylvania Department of Education
• Edward Falco, South Carolina Department of Education
• Irene Pickhardt, Texas Education Agency
• Tony Angell, Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction