Science and Civic Engagement Western Network (SCEWestNet) was a multi-institutional collaboration t0 overcome the serious obstacle of sustaining and growing reform—and creating an effective community of practice—across the expansive 17 states of the western United States.
Photo credit: karen Bullock (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The project was funded through a grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to the National Center for Science & Civic Engagement. SCEWestNet was led by David Burns, Amy Shachter, and Richard Sheardy. The program built on the work of existing SENCER Centers for Innovation (SCIs) West and Southwest. SCI-West, SCI-Southwest, and the SCEWestNet leadership team worked with experienced SENCER coordinators in the west to plan an effective set of seven regionally localized organizational units or network nodes:
Alaska (Larry Duffy, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
Washington & Oregon (Peter J. Alaimo, Seattle University)
California, Nevada, & Arizona (Amy Shachter, Santa Clara University)
Montana, Idaho, & Wyoming (Garon Smith, University of Montana)
Utah, Colorado, & New Mexico (Gary Booth, Brigham Young University)
Hawaii (Robert Franco, Kapiolani Community College)
Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, & Louisiana (Richard Sheardy, Texas Woman’s University)
These seven nodal partners each worked with three institutions new to SENCER to establish science education curricular reform projects led by a campus team. The partners then worked with the SCIs to scale up science education reform efforts. SCEWestNet developed a sustainable structure to overcome obstacles of scale and cost and contribute to achieving significant, lasting science education reform.