Obituaries

Donald B. Peck died peacefully on Sunday, September 27 at Greenfields of Geneva, where he had resided since 2012. He was born on June 21, 1930 in Torrington, Connecticut and was the son of Alta Fuller Peck and Donald K. Peck.

Don, as he liked to be known, was an Eagle Scout and a graduate of Litchfield High School and Bates College, where he earned a degree in chemistry in 1953. He received a master’s in science and science teaching from Union College in 1960. He was a lifelong science educator and writer, teaching initially at his old high school before moving to Warren, New Jersey in 1964 and taking a series of positions in school administration, eventually becoming the Director of the Center for Elementary Science at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He was a co-author of several sets of elementary-school science textbooks—innovative in their time for their focus on experimentation and discovery—used by millions of children across the nation.

Don met his future wife, Lorraine Lachat, while both were teaching at Litchfield High School. They married in 1955, raised three children, and remained loving partners for 60 years until her death in 2015. In retirement, Don wrote Mineral Identification: A Personal Guide for the Amateur Minerologist, published by the Mineralogical Record in 2007 and 2016. An avid woodworker who had built much of his family’s first house himself, he volunteered regularly for Habitat for Humanity. At Greenfields, he researched family genealogy, began a club on the same subject, and for years gave presentations to other residents on subjects such as the day the dinosaurs died and the history of women in science.

Don is survived by his daughter Deborah Donohoe and her husband Ron, of Crystal Lake; his daughter Cynthia Peck, also of Crystal Lake; his son Donald C. Peck and his wife, Meghan, of Washington, DC; three grandsons: Ryan, Riley, and Ian Donohoe; and  his great grandson, Robert Donohoe.

To support improvement in children’s science education in his memory, please visit BSCS Science Learning

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