Mission
SWEP promotes environmental stewardship by connecting students to their community and local environment through comprehensive watershed education and service-learning.
Vision
Students in the Tahoe/Truckee region understand the environment in which they live and are empowered to take action in their community to make a positive difference. Students, together with community partners and teachers, work collaboratively to address relevant environmental and social issues.
Executive Director
Melissa ‘Missy’ Mohler
email: missybmohler@yahoo.com
phone: 530-583-1430
Project Director
Ashley Phillips
email: ashleytewenson@hotmail.com
phone: 530-208-6154
History
Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP) is a small, community-oriented non-profit organization based within the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District. We started out in 1994 as a small group of parents and teachers interested in providing comprehensive science education to the students in our local classrooms. In 1995, SWEP received a grant from AmeriCorps and Adopt-A-Watershed and began to incorporate science programs, outdoor field studies, and ecological restoration projects into the curriculum of our local school district. SWEP officially incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization in 1996. We currently have two staff members, a committed volunteer core, and an active Board of Directors that collectively help us achieve our mission.
What We Do
SWEP’s primary role is to build collaborative community partnerships that promote the implementation of hands-on watershed science education. We accomplish this task by providing teacher trainings, community education and outreach, and collaborative efforts in service-learning that emphasize the elements of the Adopt-A-Watershed (AAW) science curriculum. The AAW science curriculum is endorsed by the local Tahoe Truckee Unified School District and provides an innovative K-12 environmental education framework that uses the school’s local watershed as a living laboratory. Students participate in outdoor field studies and service-learning projects that apply concepts learned in the classroom to the stewardship of the surrounding watersheds. Students are able to learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized projects that are conducted in and meet the needs of the local community. Ultimately this type of service-learning strategy is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students while fostering their civic responsibility. We call our educational model Place-Based Service-Learning (PBSL).
