About Us

The Mineral Resources Education Program of British Columbia (MREPBC) is a partnership program between teachers and the minerals industry in B.C. It was created to assist teachers in their development of educational materials to support teaching about minerals, mining and geoscience in the classroom. MREPBC's goals are to foster a well-informed public through school education based on accurate and balanced minerals information, and to stimulate young peoples' interest in minerals industry careers.

The heart of the MREPBC school program is a suite of teacher-written materials that were developed to help teach mineral-relevant topics at all grade levels (K-12) as determined by the provincial curriculum. These classroom materials are assembled as kits with lessons, AV materials, posters, books and rock and mineral samples that are provided to teachers through instructional workshops. MREPBC also supports teachers and students through newsletters and an educational Web site (www.bcminerals.ca), and by building connections to the industry through field trips and industry conferences. Classroom teachers continue to be involved in the development and delivery of this program around the province.

This respected school program began in 1991 and its earliest initiatives were supported by the Mining Association of BC (MABC). As the education program grew and demand from teachers increased a separate, registered charitable organization was established in 1994 to garner the financial support to continue to develop and deliver the program province-wide. Since that time the BC minerals industry, including many MABC member companies and individuals, has raised more than $4.9 million dollars for the charity in support of this school program and its Endowment Fund. This support has made it possible for MREPBC to assist more than 7,300 BC teachers who are estimated to have taught more than 650,000 students mining-related topics in their classrooms. (December 2008)

MREPBC 2009 Year in Review.

MREPBC is solely supported by charitable donations.

Personal and corporate donations may be may be mailed to directly to MREPBC using the MREPBC Donation Form. MREPBC will issue a tax receipts for donations of $20.00 and more.

Donations of public shares to MREPBC through Haywood Securities may be done using the MREPBC Canadian Securities Donation Form.

Online donations to MREPBC may be made through Canada Helps, a charitable foundation established to facilitate online donation transactions for registered charities in Canada. Canada Helps will issue your tax receipt and forward the donation and your information to MREPBC. The button above directs you to Canada Helps.