Sierra North Arts Project
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Established in 1993 and using the model of teachers teaching teachers, the Sierra-North Arts Project (SNAP) fosters the professional development of kindergarten through post-secondary teachers. It honors the priorities of the California Arts Project (TCAP): direct engagement with the artistic process, direct applications to classroom teaching, and development of teacher leaders in arts education. One of six California Arts Project regional sites, SNAP serves the following twelve-county area: Colusa, El Dorado, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sierra, Solano, Yolo, and Yuba counties.
The Sierra North Arts Project is housed at the Center for Cooperative Research and Extension Services for Schools (CRESS Center) which is located on the campus of the University of California at Davis. SNAP is one of the six regional sites of The California Arts Project, the Subject Matter Project for the Visual and Performing Arts established by SB 1882, and is responsible for professional development in arts education in the ten counties that make up region III.
SNAP focuses on the priorities of TCAP and the TCAP Model as it expands the work of the site and provides for the professional development of K-16 teachers in the ten counties of Region III. In order to maintain the community of learners established in SNAP and provide a professional home for arts educators in Region III, SNAP engages in in-depth arts discipline work, expands its networking support systems among and between pre-kindergarten through higher education faculty, and continues to share exemplary expertise and classroom practices with colleagues. SNAP focuses on retaining, reclaiming, and recruiting; reclaiming those who have been part of the California Arts Project but have been less involved and are never the less important to the site; recruiting those who have not as yet been included in the project but are of vital interest to the site because of what can be shared and experienced.
The goals set forth by SNAP cover four key objectives:
* to deepen teachers' subject matter knowledge
* to provide opportunities for teachers to connect with their personal creativity and the arts learning community
* to create a wide variety of leadership opportunities for SNAP members
* to develop strategies and techniques for translating research experiences into classroom practice. SNAP also strives to foster knowledge about the essential role the arts play in understanding cultural diversity.