LatinaLista —
Campaign: Dominican Republic’s Butterfly Biodiversity Center Butterfly Biodiversity Center
Kelly Freeman is a Peace Corps volunteer and has teamed with Dr. Jose G. Maldonado-Rivera the founder/executive director of the Dominican Republic’s first public Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) magnet school – the Liceo Cientifico (High School Scientific).
Freeman is volunteering her time to work as part of the Dr. Maldonado team to help bring understanding and solutions to one of the planet’s biggest challenges, the world’s environmental health.
Freeman also hopes to promote local citizens and Liceo Cientifico students to participate in environmental education and protection projects.
The Butterfly and Biointensive Biodiversity Center will reproduce and export Dominican butterflies to other butterfly exhibits throughout the world. A rustic visitor’s shed that will host multimedia presentations on the region’s biodiversity and environmental problems, the Center will also have an enclosed biodiversity greenhouse where visitors can walk through a lush forest, dry forest, karst forest and shrub-land and their associated butterfly species.
A biointensive gardening program will also move the school closer to self-sustainability by growing vegetables and like produce used in the school cafeteria.
The project’s overall mission is to provide students and individuals with cutting-edge, research-based knowledge, frameworks, tools and leadership skills to develop strategic means to implement and manage profitable and purposeful change toward sustainability of the environment.
The campaign’s goal is $36,000 and ends on September 2, 2014.
