We hope your classrooms have been bursting with life as students investigate and care for living organisms during the life science courses this spring season! Please share these experiences with us on social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook). We can’t wait to see all the engaging work going on in your science classrooms.

The GEMS-Net website has a new look! The same great resources and information are still available, but we hope this new design is more intuitive and user-friendly. Check out the updates and let us know what you think: https://web.uri.edu/gemsnet/

As always, please reach out with any questions, concerns, or feedback (gemsnet@etal.uri.edu).

In partnership!

The GEMS-Net Team

Congratulations to Stacy Gale: RIEEA’S Teacher of the Year!

Stacy's dedication to environmental literacy shows in her science teaching and her leadership role within her own school and throughout the state. Stacy has committed many years as a teacher leader in the GEMS-Net program and is consistently engaged in research that moves environmental education forward. Most recently, Stacy and her 4th grade team participated in research that explored the affordances and challenges of virtual field experiences with the Roger Williams Park Zoo. Her thoughtful participation and consistent collaboration with informal educators continue to inform the environmental education field both locally and nationally. All of her work and dedication center around children with a goal of justice and equity, making Stacy an excellent choice for the RIEEA Educator of the Year award!

Preschool - STEM in Early Childhood

"Inspiring! Thank you! Science is so important!"

- Preschool Teacher, Exeter-West Greenwich

Preschool educators had a successful professional learning day on the Bay Campus! Our dedicated teachers dove into bringing digital literacy and outdoor teaching and learning to life in the PreK classroom. Open-access digital resources were shared while the educators collaborated on how to practically implement STEM in early childhood. We are excited to grow our preschool cohorts as we move forward.

"Enjoyed time to collaborate with teachers from other districts."

- Preschool Teacher, Jamestown

Elementary School - Special Programs

"So helpful to collaborate and begin to look at/build/plan for special programs!

Thank you!"

- Special Educator (K-2), Warwick

The GEMS-Net team is collaborating with Warwick special educators to develop special programs in K-2 & 3-5. This work has focused on taking science learning outdoors and using students’ schoolyard as an opportunity to engage with science concepts in a local, real-world context.The program will ensure that grade-level content is accessible to students in multi-grade classrooms. We are excited about this project and will make it available to other partner districts via our Google Classroom!

"Excellent workshop! Finally a training in curriculum specifically targeting the many challenges we face teaching students with disabilities in multiple grades."

- Special Educator (3-5), Warwick

Elementary School - 2022 Science Material Request Process

With the end of the school year quickly approaching, don’t forget to complete the 2022 Science Material Request Process. Detailed instructions were emailed to all K-5 teachers assigned kits from GEMS-Net. However, if you need a quick refresher of how the new inventory process works this year, check out the material request instructions and/or video. We want to make sure that you have all the materials you need to start teaching science at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year.

Middle School - Developing Global Competence with Our Students

"I enjoyed the topic of TEK [Traditional Ecological Knowledge] and want to incorporate indigenous ways of knowing into not only my practice but my everyday life. I want to share this knowledge with my own children."

-Middle School Teacher

Our middle school teachers participated in an engaging and productive day of professional learning during the Developing Global Competence with Our Students workshop on March 14th!

We want to give a big thank you to Lorén Spears, Executive Director of the Tomaquag Museum. She provided the opening remarks for our event and shared how Traditional Ecological Knowledge provides a context for scientific thinking that is grounded in a sense of place, reciprocity, and relationship with the Earth.

We are also extremely grateful to the following researchers and community partners who facilitated breakout sessions during the workshop. Thanks for sharing with us your ongoing work in the areas of climate science, climate justice, and developing solutions for global challenges.

• Vulnerability and Climate Adaptation for Archeological Sites at Colonial National Historical Park

• Amanda L. Babson, Ph.D., Coastal Landscape Adaptation Coordinator, National Park Service

• Building Climate Literacy with Community Science

• Jeanine Silversmith, Executive Director, RI Environmental Education Association (RIEEA)

• Andrea Stein, Manager of School Programs, Roger Williams Park Zoo

• April Alix, Conservation Coordinator, Providence Parks Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership

• Examining the implications of varying rates of sea-level rise on shorelines with differing topographies

• Elizabeth Laliberte, Ph.D., Teaching Professor, URI Department of Geosciences

• Water for the World: Healthy water for us and for everyone!

• Eva Davet, BS Civil Engineering Student

• Tania Thalyta Silva de Oliveira, Ph.D. Candidate Chemical Engineering

• Vinka Oyanedel-Craver Ph.D., Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, PI Water for the World Lab

• Latest Research from the Walsh COAST Lab

• J.P. Walsh, Ph.D., Professor of Oceanography

• TEK: Traditional Ways of Knowing Science

• Lorén Spears, Narragansett educator and Tomaquag Museum Executive Director

• Innovative Solutions to Ecological Problems in Aquatic Environments

• Graham Forrester, Ph.D., Professor of Natural Resources Science

• Using Robotics to Help Evaluate Solutions to Ecological Problems

• Stephen Licht, Ph.D., Professor of Ocean Engineering

The work from March 14th helped frame some of the work we’re taking on as we re-envision what we want STEM teaching and learning to look like for all students and set our program priorities heading into the High Quality Curriculum Materials review for science. We’re excited to dive deeper into this work with our district and community partners during our annual Summer Institute!

If you are interested in learning more about the middle school professional day of learning, click on the following link to view the workshop slide deck: GEMS-Net Global Competence (3/14/22)

"More PD like this. I like how there were professors and scientists working with us."

-Middle School Teacher

"Very engaging! The presenters were extremely energetic and made it interesting."

- Middle School Teacher

STEM Teaching Tools: Using Local Phenomena to Communicate Climate Solutions

Looking for meaningful ways to engage students in their community?

Interested in having your students design solutions to solve the effects of climate change on local phenomena?

Check out the STEM Teaching Tool, Practice Brief # 69, as a resource for integrating more climate science into your instruction.

Global Competence

RI educators are charged with the task of developing globally competent learners who contribute meaningfully to society. What does this mean? How do we reach this goal?

Developing global competence in our students is a next step for our GEMS-Net partnership. We value this work and the team is here to support you through the process of integrating global competence practices into our instruction. We have introduced our middle school teachers to a Global Competence Framework which was developed by the California Global Education Project. Our goal is to identify meaningful opportunities within our curriculum (current or future) where students (PreK-8) engage in the four domains of the Global Competence Framework to design solutions for local climate-related phenomena. Check out the graphic and button below to learn more about this framework.

Teacher Tips & Tricks

Want to start integrating global competence practices into your instruction right away?

A small next step you can take is to try using the 3 Y’s strategy of questioning developed from Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. The questions below help to scaffold students’ thinking from a personal level to a more global view. This routine encourages students to expand their thinking outside the classroom as they consider different perspectives and reflect on how real people in their communities and across the world are impacted by the topics they are studying!

Calling Early Childhood Educators to Participate in our Research Study…

Do you teach children between the ages of three and six?

We want to learn from you!

Your voice is important in the STEM conversation.

Please consider taking this 30 minute survey. Your participation will help inform the development of quality preschool educational materials.

Survey link: https://uri.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8v47r7tSDJJJ0nc

Eligible participants are early childhood educators who currently teach children between the ages of three and six years old.

You must be 18 years of age or older to participate.

This is a research study from the University of Rhode Island, and has been approved by The University of Rhode Island’s Institutional Review Board.

Please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr. Sara Sweetman (sara_sweetman@uri.edu) for more information.