A handbook for starting and running a Community Science Workshop
3. A CSW’s Contents and Layout
4. CSW “Curriculum”: Projects, Activities, Exhiblets, Specimens
6. Leadership, Operation and Development of the CSW Organization
7. Considerations for Starting a CSW
9. CSW History
CSWs have a rich history—34 years and counting as of this writing. The stories of the origins of each CSW site and their attempts at connection and unified growth are inspiring glimpses into how a CSW may germinate, sprout, take root, and grow to offer vital services to a community.
In the beginning, there was Dan Sudran’s garage. We are fortunate to have documentation and personal witness to this place, otherwise it would come off as an apocryphal Neverland story.
In 1991, Dan lived on Florida Street in the then predominantly Latino Mission District of San Francisco. His house was a modest old Victorian with a garage and a tiny back yard. Having moved away from his original legal career with Cesar Chavez and the UFW, he was working as a technician at the City College of San Francisco (CCSF) electronics lab. Also, and critically, Dan had already developed his deep interest in natural history. Thus, his garage was stuffed not only with all manner of electronic detritus, but also with rocks, crystals, bones, fossils, and preserved roadkill. There were oscilloscopes as well as microscopes. Magnifying glasses were used to view specimens as well as play with light. Piles of books and technical journals collected on all surfaces. A hodgepodge of tools garnished the edges, and storage racks were overfilled with materials of every kind.
Here was the original scientist at work—guided by his own curiosity, pursuing his own answers, forming his own creations. Please pause and note that this is the quintessential possibility in all CSWs: to be a space specifically designed and provisioned to allow maximum ease of hands-on, minds-on, curiosity driven self-learning and creation in any subject area.
The final element of this historic scene is that the garage door was open. Local kids poked their heads in and were invited to have a look around. If they only spoke Spanish, they were happy to find that Dan was fluent. They plied him with questions and requests, and he shared his discoveries and creations with them. They found that Dan was a natural teacher and storyteller, who held a deep instinct to pass on his discoveries. Many of us who knew him were charmed, then amazed, then inspired, and finally developed this same instinct to pass it on. This was one key to the growth of CSWs.
Dan also deeply understood the importance of caring adults in the lives of children. From the beginning, the CSW mission was far greater than science education. As a kid, having a richly-provisioned space to freely pursue your curiosity in the company of adults who understand how to best support this pursuit is a recipe for a healthy childhood and a good life.
From there, the CSW story is one of both vision and serendipity. Dan developed the idea that he could make this bigger and reach more kids by forming a similar public space available to a wider community. He began making allies toward this mission. He made contact with key leadership at the Exploratorium Teacher Institute and attended their summer teacher training institute. He made contacts at City College of SF leadership and secured a room in the Mission Campus on Bartlett and 22nd in 1992. And he made contact with a dean at San Francisco State University who was interested in having teachers learn from this new space.
Dan worked the single program in the CCSF campus together with Vicente Oropeza, who was a CCSF student at the time. The room they had been given was a wood shop that still had programs some evenings, so Dan and Vince had to set up and take down. They had a scrappy set of exhibits and project models, together with loads of interesting junk piled all around. They spent a lot of time and energy trying to get kids and families to feel comfortable coming into the college and up the stairs to the Workshop. Some teachers found out about the space and brought in their classes, from which would return some of the students during open hours.
By 1995 Mission Science Workshop (MSW) was open several days per week after school, and was open late on Wednesdays for family night. Dan and Exploratorium Teacher Institute staff received support to train Mission District teachers in CSW-style learning at the City College space. These teachers’ classes also began visiting regularly. Some artists began regualary doing their work at the space with options for kids and families to take part as well.
In the late 1990s and 2000s MSW maintained and increased connections to many local teachers, schools, and the SF school district. Dan collected hundreds of specimens and with his staff constructed dozens of hands-on exhibits. He established connections with several scientists to help inform his work, and developed many projects and activities to teach using the resources he amassed. He carried out many trainings for students, staff, teachers, parents, and the public to share this knowledge with through the CSWs.
MSW got a huge hit when CCSF demolished and rebuilt their Mission District campus around 2005. Originally, MSW had a spot designated in the new facility, but somehow it was dropped from the plan. Eventually, Dan found an excellent space not far away in an old auto shop classroom at Mission High School. MSW moved there in 2006.
In 2013 MSW expanded to another site in Excelsior in the upper room of a church. The two sites were under the same leadership and fiscal sponsorship, but ran programs independently. In 2023, MSW expanded again to a school in Bayview district, unrelated to the Bayview site started in the 1990s.
In 1993 a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant was received for CSW expansion to other sites in California. Oakland Discovery Center was already open and highly aligned with Dan’s vision, and so became the first to benefit from the grant. Over the next four years, other sites and directors were found in Bayview-Hunter’s Point, San Bruno, San Jose, Los Angeles, Fresno, Stockton, and Watsonville.
Each of these sites was unique. Bayview-Hunter’s Point was located in the classroom of an elementary school, and ran more as a satellite of MSW. San Bruno was set up in a spare high school classroom, with a teacher there in charge of programming. San Jose ran for several years out of an unused high school vocational-technical space, and then moved to a middle school. Oakland, Fresno, and Watsonville were established within the Parks and Recreation departments of those cities. Stockton was run out of the community center of a low-income housing organization. The LA CSW was run under the auspices of the University of Southern California MESA program. It did not have a proper site; rather the director prepared materials in the MESA storage room, then delivered programs at several local schools.
It was a time of testing the possible CSW models as well as directors and institutions. Most of those sites closed after a few years. Bayview-Hunter’s point closed when the staff in charge resigned. (Another Bayview site opened much later in the 2020s.) Stockton closed due to general lack of support. San Jose dropped the freeform drop-in program and ran a limited program specifically designed to teach specific science and engineering concepts. LA operated for many years but never established a designated site.
Oakland, Fresno, and Watsonville continue today. Each of these three sites expanded operations to additional spaces or moved spaces over their lifetimes. Rich in Oakland opened a site in West Oakland in a housing complex. Curt in Watsonville opened a satellite site in an alternative high school near a rough neighborhood across town from the main site, then when that space was taken away, at a nearby church. Manuel in Fresno opened up sites at parks and playgrounds across the city. He notes how important this was, because low-income families often don’t have easy access to transport. He was able to serve diverse neighborhoods with each of these sites, even though many were short lived. Oakland and Fresno maintained the same directors for most of this time, whereas Watsonville went through several directors.
In 2001, another NSF grant was received through San Francisco State University Dean Paul Fonteyn’s office to fund the expansion of the CSW model to sites outside of California. Mission Science Workshop supported as a resource and model for this expansion.
By design, each of the CSWs established under this grant were set up within a well-established educational or nonprofit organization. Newark, Houston, and Washington DC CSWs were based in science museums, Miami and New Orleans CSWs were set up within non-profits, and Boston was established in a high school.
The results of this expansion effort were mixed and not well-documented. Over the years of the grant, staff from the sites within and outside California gathered at various locations for meetings and conferences. There was a website describing the work of these sites, but there was a marked decision from the grant leadership not to support a continuing network organization.
Each of these sites had been set up according to the original CSW model of site independence and self-sustainability. However, only limited measures were put in place to establish the mission and requirements of a CSW, and no restrictions existed beyond the end of the start-up funding. Naturally, these directors and institutions had varying priorities and visions for their work. With such distance between the sites, connections slowly faded.
This expansion effort included other weaknesses. While the “mothership” San Francisco CSW was at the ready to support other sites, and even sent staff occasionally to help at the out-of-state-sites, it did not prioritize their establishment or well-being, and only a limited amount of the grant funding was allocated to this sort of nurturing support. Paul Fonteyn, the PI and leader of the expansion grant, moved from San Francisco State to University of Massachusetts Boston in the middle of the grant, taking the grant with him, and steadily decreased his connection with San Francisco and the other CSWs.
At the time of this writing, of the six out-of-California sites, only one is in contact with the Global Alliance for CSW: Houston Science Workshop. It is known that several have closed up shop.
By 2010 all but four of the CSWs in California—San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Watsonville—had shut down or changed directions. These four were still going strong, and after long discussions and considerations agreed to set up a formal umbrella organization to support and promote CSWs: the CSW Network. The CSWs outside California had sufficiently distanced from each other that they were not included in the Network.
The CSW Network received grants from two large corporate foundations, both of which had previously been involved in other aspects of CSWs and had good relations with San Francisco CSW: Moore and Bechtel. An ED was hired, Emilyn Green, having several years of experience at the Watsonville CSW. Emilyn set up the non-profit organization. The organization’s board consisted of the existing CSW directors and one more person chosen by each of the directors.
The grant funding through the CSW Network was earmarked for specific projects at or across CSWs. Several bulk orders of key instruments were made and distributed to the sites: telescopes, vacuum pumps, Van de Graff generators, etc. A staff person was hired to help each site document several of their best projects to go into a bank of CSW project ideas. Several visits to the Bay Area Maker Faire were coordinated by the CSW Network with participation from various CSWs. Regular meetings and sharing sessions were also supported.
During this time, Greenfield CSW and Sanger CSW (SAM Academy) were established. Both became part of the Network and benefited somewhat from its support. The four established California sites also grew and expanded during this time, with San Francisco opening the Excelsior Science Workshop, and Watsonville and Fresno expanding service to several satellite sites.
The CSW Network ended badly. Oakland CSW pulled out in 2013, citing different views from the leadership and excessive time spent away from priorities in Oakland. By 2016, Jerry of Sanger CSW came to dominate the board and held views on philosophy and priorities not shared by the other CSWs. In January 2017, Dan resigned from the CSW Network board. He did not see the benefit of continuing to fight for the organization and indeed saw the prospect of continued lost time and energy. Over the next year or so, all remaining sites pulled out leaving only Sanger CSW. Sanger CSW leadership has continued to maintain this nonprofit organization to present, though it is not clear what programs are active.
After the collapse of the CSW Network, the California sites remained in close contact and continued gathering for conferences and trainings. The grey whale skeleton and other exhibits continued to be shared between sites. These multi-CSW events were supported by Dan through his trust fund. Most felt a sense of relief to be free of the entanglements of the formal organization and were able to stay connected without it. All noted the powerful benefit of the locally-funded, locally-administered CSW model.
Starting in 2019, five existing CSWs (San Francisco, Fresno, Watsonville, Greenfield, and Ithaca) began discussing a new umbrella organization that could avoid the pitfalls of the Network while reaping the benefits of an official entity. Over a year of many conversations the idea gained steam. It was decided that an ED was not necessary at first, that all board members would be CSW directors or leadership, and that the preliminary aim would simply be to exist as an entity with a website so that anyone interested could know of our presence and contact us. If in the future more capacity and funding allowed, additional functions could be added to the organizations.
Thus in August 2020, the nonprofit organization Global Alliance of Community Science Workshops (GACSW) was recognized by the IRS with the mission to “support, promote and propagate CSWs”. The name was an attempt to be all encompassing; CSWs have links to several like-minded organizations in other countries and it was important to leave open the option of accepting them into the GACSW. Pittsburgh CSW was founded around this time and was taken in as the sixth member organization. Salinas CSW began in 2021.
By 2022 GACSW had found funding for a part-time executive director. We had a vision of providing more active support to the CSWs and promoting new ones. Between mid 2022 and 2025 GACSW had a series of part-time EDs, and with that link in place, we were able to function more like a true umbrella organization. One of the first and most important tasks was to support Watsonville CSW to branch out from the City of Watsonville and take contracts from local school districts under the temporary auspices of GACSW. In 2025 this operation was moved to another fiscal sponsor and continues to operate successfully. In late 2025, the GACSW ED resigned, and board members are currently doing ED’s work while future plans are formed.
In 2024, Martinez CSW opened a space in the Contra Costa Boys and Girls Club. Santa Cruz Barrio CSW was launched in August 2025 bringing the total sites in GACSW to nine. At the time of this writing, contact has been renewed with Oakland and Houston, CSWs with steps taken to accept them into GACSW. Finally, at the time of this writing, a new site with great expectations is being founded in Fort Collins, Colorado: the North Colorado CSW.
In addition to ongoing all-CSW gatherings, now termed “Nonferences” to explicitly describe their unconventional, non-bureaucratic nature, GACSW has accomplished other significant work in its first five years:
Four international organizations have informal ties to GACSW:
Additionally, entities in the Pine Ridge Reservation are in contact with GACSW and are considering establishing CSWs in their communities.
More stories of CSW history appear in Chapter 7: Considerations for Starting a CSW.