Workshops Fall 2007

Participants receive a corresponding GEMS guide and C.E.U.'s. Optional Keene State graduate credit is available when taking all four classes and completing additional assignments.

GEMS Course Descriptions Fall ‘07
(All courses 9:30 am to 12:00 pm)

 In each 2 hour GEMS workshop, participants will experience a GEMS guide through the eyes, ears, and hands of a student while, at the same time, learn how to successfully teach and adapt each unit in their own classroom. A GEMS guide for the unit is included in the registration cost. Workshops may be taken individually (for CEUs/PDPs) or as a series along with additional requirements for credit

Group Solutions Grades 1 - 5
This unit is a wonderful introduction to scientific testing and can be used as a springboard for Science Fairs/Festivals or

If you could harness the cooperative potential of youngsters, bring them together over puzzles in logic, and allow their social dynamics to fall into place, you might have created Group Solutions.

One of the most popular GEMS guides, this unit brings cooperative learning to the fore in highly motivating ways, providing young students with early and valuable experience in working and solving problems together.

In groups of four, students participate in more than 50 highly involving, cooperative logic activities. Each student receives a clue to a problem and must share the information with all other group members to find the solution. The entire group is responsible for resolving the problem, and the solution can only be discovered by amassing and connecting all the clues.

This unit is particularly adaptable to the multilingual or ESL classroom, allowing other-language speakers to use nonverbal manipulative skills, and facilitating language and concept development in English. A great way to build community at the beginning of the school year!

Oobleck Grades 3 - 8
One of the all-time most popular GEMS guides, Oobleck makes a joyful scientist out of every child. Oobleck is a green, oozy substance (from "outer space," in this fictional account) that both begs and eludes description as it initiates students in the nature of inquiry and definition and sparks vigorous debate about its properties.

Students begin by forming small laboratory teams to examine, experiment with, and hypothesize about Oobleck (in truth, a mixture of cornstarch, water, and food coloring), learning and using the scientific vocabulary needed to describe material properties. In the second activity, the class holds a scientific convention to discuss experimental findings. Students then turn engineers, and design a spacecraft that can successfully land on an ocean of Oobleck. In the final session, the methods the students used to analyze Oobleck are compared to those of professional scientists, such as those working on the Mars Viking mission. A large poster illustrating the mission is included.

Oobleck is not only a great hands-on experience for all ages, it provides students authentic insight into the real work of scientists.

Secret Formulas Grades 1 - 4
If you wanted to find a "secret formula" to produce a guide that contained wildly popular, sweet, and tasty activities solidly packed with math and science, you'd have it in Secret Formulas! Students eagerly investigate the properties of substances as they make their own personal brands of paste, toothpaste, cola, and ice cream. The activities have been carefully designed to convey key science/mathematics skills and concepts, provide highly motivating real-life experiences with chemistry, and build student understanding of cause and effect, central to later understanding of controlled experimentation.

Secret Formulas speaks to the need expressed by many primary school teachers for more hands-on physical science activities.

 Mystery Festival Grades 2 - 8
This exciting and popular GEMS Festival Teacher's Guide features two imaginative and compelling mysteries, one for younger and one for older students. Each mystery allows for layers of detection, from the simplest to the more involved, to allow for several grade levels' participation.

Mystery Festival uses a classroom learning-station format; students study the "crime scene," then conduct crime-lab tests on the evidence, analyze the results, and try to solve the mystery. These forensic science activities absorb students from the start and keep them intensely involved throughout.

This unit explores many key content areas and emphasizes the important distinction between evidence and inference. The many crime-lab procedures include thread tests, powder tests, DNA comparison, chromatography, and fingerprinting. Mystery Festival combines fun and excitement with careful experimentation, logical thinking, and real-life connections to forensic science. As the fascinating correlation between science and detective work become clear, students absorb processes that will be useful in all disciplines.

Family Night

Build It! Festival
Weaving mathematics concepts into engaging, hands-on construction activities, this evening will include a wide assortment of activities that emphasize construction, geometric challenges, and spatial visualization. We will begin with free exploration of materials to lay the foundation for such mathematical challenges as Create-A-Shape, Dowel Designs, Polyhedra, Symmetry, Tangrams, and What Comes Next? A number of “mathematical” games will be introduced and played, as well.