State grants boost outdoor learning and watershed stewardship in Prince George's County
Prince George's County students will plant, collect data, and maintain wetlands through a state-backed grant tied to Chesapeake Bay restoration.
Prince George’s County schools are again getting pulled into Maryland’s watershed education network, with state-backed grant money aimed at turning outdoor learning into direct restoration work. The latest round, announced by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources on June 15, supports projects in Prince George’s, Charles and Anne Arundel counties and is being routed through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Implementation Grant program.
For Prince George’s County, the clearest local link is the Accokeek Foundation. Its project will bring seventh-grade students from Prince George’s County Public Schools and Charles County Public Schools into hands-on restoration work that includes planting, collecting data and maintaining wetland ecosystems. The foundation said its K-12 programs in Piscataway Park are built around traditional ecological knowledge, cultural heritage and historical context, with lessons tied to state curriculum standards and designed to help students understand how people shape the landscape.
That matters in a county where access to outdoor environmental learning has often depended on whether a school could connect to a specialized partner. Prince George’s County Public Schools says its environmental literacy mission is to provide high-quality, multidisciplinary environmental education that helps students solve environmental problems, and the Accokeek model puts that mission into practice outside the classroom. It also gives Indigenous students cultural representation and non-Indigenous students experience being respectful guests on Piscataway land, while connecting lessons to land and water stewardship along the Potomac and its tributaries.
The state did not release a fixed dollar figure for the 2026 round, saying the amount depended on federal funding availability and approval. Still, the grant structure is significant: Chesapeake Bay Implementation Grant funds are authorized under Section 117(e)(1)(A) of the Clean Water Act, support the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement and require a 1:1 non-federal match. Maryland’s Chesapeake and Coastal Service administers the money with EPA Region 3 and the Chesapeake Bay Program Office, and DNR said applications for the next fiscal year will open in July through Grants Gateway.
Prince George’s County’s role in this system is not new. In 2022, DNR announced $128,000 in awards for student and youth outdoor science and watershed education, including support for the Accokeek Foundation and Prince George’s County Public Schools on work centered on Indigenous communities, cultural preservation, land and water rights, tribal sovereignty and stewardship ethics. The county also has a longer-running connection to the Anacostia Watershed Society, whose Mussel Power program has partnered with Prince George’s County Public Schools since 2019 on lessons, field studies and mussel restoration work tied to the Anacostia River and the William S. Schmidt Outdoor Education Center. Together, those grants show a continuing pipeline, not a one-time award, for students learning how watershed health affects neighborhoods, habitat and long-term environmental quality across Prince George’s County.
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