Our Political Science Department is proud to announce that Samanatha Westerdale--a 2021 Masters graduate from our program--has recently been selected as the winner of the national Civic Star Challenge. The award recognizes Samantha's success in engaging her high school students in active learning about civics in the US, and she is one of only 63 teachers nationwide to receive this honor.
Samantha has taught at Colorado Rangeview High School for 14 years, where she engages her students in interactive civic exercises, such as reaching out to local lawmakers with policy ideas and serving as lawyers defending each others' rights in mock constitutional cases.
As quoted in an Aurora schools newsletter, Samantha realizes that “Students care about more than just themselves. There’s a misconception that they’re inward-focused, but they’re not. They’re incredibly tuned in to the world. They want to make sense of what they see in the news every day. When we connect those moments to history and civics, they realize they have a place in the story.”
Samantha is a recipient of the 2018 James Madison Fellowship for Colroado, and uses her Political Science MA degre to teach 11th and 12th grade civics classes, including dual enrollment courses in American Government, State & Local Government, Introductino to Political Science, and African American Studies.
See more here: https://east.aurorak12.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=3407049&pageId=19419823