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GEMS-Net Newsletter

Spring 2024

GEMS-NetNewsletterSpring 2024

Welcome!

We hope everyone has been enjoying diving into the life science courses! This spring, the GEMS-Net team has continued to support teachers through initial workshops, advanced sessions, and in-person coaching. Our Navy/STEM teachers-in-residence have also been busy developing more resources that connect the exciting engineering research at the University of Rhode Island and UConn to the teaching and learning in your science classroom. The videos and tasks below are ready to be used in your classrooms! If you use these resources, please share your feedback with us. We are always looking to make improvements.


As always, if you have any questions or concerns or need support, please email gemsnet@etal.uri.edu.


In partnership!

The GEMS-Net Team
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Birding Around Campus!

Tracy Hall from Audubon takes K teachers on a birding adventure around URI's Bay Campus.

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Touring Labs!

Andrew Sheerin, a researcher from URI's Water for the World Lab, talks with middle school teachers about his research on reducing storm water pollution.

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Engaging in Simulations!

1st grade teachers use a simulation to explore how the behavior of squirrels help them to survive in the winter.

Teacher Spotlight

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Congratulations to Stacy Gale for being awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST)! This is the highest honor a K-12 science, technology, engineering, or mathematics teacher can receive for outstanding teaching in the United States.


Stacy is a 4th grade teacher at Paul Cuffee School in Providence and a member of the GEMS-Net Teacher Leader Team. She supports our partnership by facilitating workshops for teachers and participating in multiple GEMS-Net research projects that support the growth and improvement of STEM education in Rhode Island. Stacy shares her love of the natural environment, project-based learning, and enthusiasm for science teaching with her colleagues and students. She engages students in complex concepts while facilitating student-led sense-making discussions. She holds her students to the highest level of expectations while building their conceptual understanding of the subject matter. It is inspiring to observe her students discuss complex ideas, ask questions, and develop plans to investigate their curiosities. Stacy’s commitment to her students, her school community, and the larger educational community is evident and she is such a deserving recipient of the PAEMST. Congrats again, Stacy!

Practitioner Updates

Early Childhood Programming

Book Study

Media Literacy for Young Children:

Teaching Beyond the Screen Time Debates

By Faith Rogow, 2022


The first GEMS-Net book study was a great success. We want to thank the book study members for their commitment to continued growth and thoughtful discussions that are truly transforming our approach to media literacy and STEM education. The teachers agree that the time spent ‘diving in’ to intentional and appropriate use of technology has reframed how we think about our practice as educators. All of our book study members have started putting their learning into their instruction creatively and authentically. They shared that the new approaches have given their young students more voice and agency in their learning, an essential objective in early childhood. The group also agreed that we are at the beginning of this work and are excited to continue the book study during the 2024-2025 school year. We hope to welcome new members to the group! Preschool and kindergarten teachers interested in learning more about educational strategies that help develop media literacy skills are invited to join us next year.

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Study Group Members: Amy Clarke, Anna Conti, Cindy Hagerty, Dawn Guilmette, Jess Bonneau


Facilitator: Kelly Houle


Cindy Hagerty, Kindergarten teacher from Matunuck Elementary in South Kingstown and Jess Bonneau, Kindergarten teacher from Holliman Elementary in Warwick, celebrate a fantastic year of collaborative work!

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Media Literacy and STEM Workshops:

GEMS-Net Advanced Workshop for Early Childhood Educators and CTE HS Students


GEMS-Net has shared the work from the Book Study along with the research in EC-STEM (early childhood science, technology, engineering, and math) with the GEMS-Net community during an advanced early childhood workshop. The workshop participants explored what it means to be literate in today's society and how we, as science educators, can help young children develop the foundational skills that promote global citizenship. Intentionally bringing technology for outdoor teaching and learning as an integrated approach to STEM was well received. One big ‘takeaway’ expressed by the participants was that we need to engage children in becoming media makers so that they understand that all media is made and that media authors make intentional decisions about how to communicate their message. How exciting for our youngest learners to make decisions about how to express themselves and share their work within their school community and beyond!


Similar workshops have been presented to the national community at the NSTA Conference in Denver, Colorado, and the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) Professional Learning Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana.


Chariho Educational Studies CTE Students Join the GEMS-Net Community


GEMS-Net was thrilled to have the juniors from the Chariho Education Studies CTE join our early childhood advanced workshop. The Chariho students were extraordinary! They were engaged in all activities, thoughtful in their work, and brought insight to our discussions that enhanced the workshop for our in-service teacher participants. We were all very impressed with the students and agreed they brought amazing energy to our day. One of our teacher leaders commented, "I can retire now because the future of education is looking very bright!"


We want to thank the Education Studies teacher, Sarah Schofield, for welcoming us into her classroom last fall and early spring. Working with the CTE program brings a new perspective to our work in our early childhood programming. GEMS-Net looks forward to continuing this valuable collaboration.

Chariho Tech students explore how to bring technology outdoors while learning new teaching strategies that support young children in becoming media makers!

Elementary Inventory (K-5)

With the end of the school year quickly approaching, don’t forget to complete your Kit Inventory by Friday, May 31st. Detailed instructions were emailed to all K-5 teachers assigned kits from GEMS-Net. We want to ensure that teachers have all the materials needed to start teaching science at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year!

High-Quality Curriculum Adoption

As part of the High-Quality Curriculum Material process for science, we are excited to share that the GEMS-Net partnership is adopting OpenSciEd (OER version) for grades 6-8. Grounded in current science education research, OpenSciEd offers a strong pedagogical approach to science instruction through the Storyline Instructional Model. It aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards, values student ideas, experiences, and decision-making, and provides us with opportunities to connect to the GEMS-Net priority areas: localizing learning, emphasizing global competence and climate science, connecting to STEM Research and Career Pathways, and engaging students with relevant and meaningful phenomena. Check out the photos below to see how our middle school teachers have started exploring the new curriculum at the OpenSciEd Overview workshops and Middle School Advanced Sessions.

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Navigating

Teachers construct a Unit Storyline to think about what student ideas and questions will help to navigate from lesson to lesson.

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Investigating

Teachers dissect a speaker to try and figure out what causes it to vibrate.

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Sense-Making

Teachers work together to develop an initial model trying to explain what is causing the recent increase in severe droughts and flooding.

GEMS-Net is prepared to support a staggered implementation of the new curriculum, and some of our districts will begin this transition during the upcoming 2024-2025 school year. GEMS-Net is a certified OpenSciEd Professional Learning provider, and we are looking forward to working with our middle school teachers as we move forward with our OpenSciEd implementation!


All GEMS-Net K-5 classrooms will continue to implement and be supported with professional learning on the FOSS curriculum. GEMS-Net will continue to review HQCM in grades K-5 and to work with districts through the selection and adoption process for K-5 as more information and options become available. If interested, some OpenSciEd units will become available for piloting in grades K-5 during the 2024-2025 school year.

Community of Practice

GEMS-Net Goes to Denver!

This past March, the GEMS-Net team attended and presented at the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) annual conference in Denver, CO. We presented six workshops!


Three sessions focused on our recent collaboration with the UConn-URI Navy/STEM Coalition. Two of these sessions titled Wait, that’s a job I can do someday? Connecting Engineering Research to Elementary and Middle School Classrooms showcased how elementary and middle school teachers can enhance student engagement and promote STEM college and career pathways by connecting classroom learning to current engineering research at URI and UCONN. Participants were provided access to videos and instructional resources developed by the GEMS-Net team that align with NGSS and connect to the engineering research. The resources introduce students to engineers working on solving real-world problems and immerse students in scenario-based tasks that use actual data collected by the engineers. These resources have been made accessible through the GEMS-Net website and are available in our GEMS-Net Google Classrooms.


We shared these resources with teachers during the advanced sessions for grades 3-8 this year. The GEMS-Net team will also develop similar videos/tasks that connect engineering research to early childhood classrooms (K-2).


The third Navy/STEM session, Enhancing Student Engagement in STEM: A Model for Connecting Engineering Research to Elementary and Middle School Classrooms, was geared toward sharing a model with school leaders about connecting current engineering research to science teaching and learning in classrooms. The model highlights the importance of collaboration between classroom teachers and researchers when developing resources that introduce students to various college and career opportunities across engineering disciplines.


Sixty-five participants attended the three sessions, and the overall feedback received was extremely positive. During the sessions, teachers commented about how the videos and scenario-based resources connected directly to their teaching, and several school leaders also inquired about how to develop similar models within their own schools and districts.


In addition to the Navy/STEM presentations, the GEMS-Net team facilitated three other sessions highlighting priority areas within our partnership. One presentation, Research for a More Just and Sustainable World: Developing Global Competence with our Middle School Students, showcased a research strategy grounded in the Global Competence Framework. Participants used maps and data visualization tools, including the EPA’s Environmental Justice Screening Tool, to consider different perspectives, investigate the world, communicate ideas, and plan action.


Another session focused on highlighting strategies that localize learning for students. During the workshop titled Connecting the Classroom to the Outdoors: Using Student Ideas to Drive Learning, participants learned how to use outdoor spaces to keep students engaged and invested in building new science ideas driven by their own observations and questions about their schoolyard and community.


The final presentation, STEM in the Early Years: Intentionally integrating technology in meaningful instruction, discussed how the intentional integration of technology in early childhood can build agency in our students, provide equitable access to media literacy skills, and transform teaching and learning. Participants explored how to use digital tools to develop habits of inquiry and expression so that our youngest learners can benefit from what it means to be literate in the digital era.


Across these three presentations we had approximately 50 participants attend, and we once again received positive feedback from teachers on the relevance and connections they saw to their own teaching, classrooms, and students. Some pictures from the conference have been included below!
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Underwater Implosion Research

Middle school teachers use engineering research from URI to explore how forces at different depths affect the strength of materials used to coat underwater vehicles.

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Programming a Drone to Help Our Community

Elementary school teachers work through a series of tasks requiring them to program a drone that needs to take photos of algae bloom in a RI lake.

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Environmental Justice Maps

Using the EPA's Environmental Justice Screening Tool, teachers identify patterns by exploring a variety of environmental, health, and socioeconomic factors.

In addition to our presentations, GEMS-Net was asked to work with the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) production team to produce a video that played throughout the conference, highlighting the GEMS-Net partnership and the recent work we’ve done with the UCONN-URI Navy/STEM Coalition. We’d like to thank everyone involved from our partner districts, especially Jamie Fratus and her students at Holliman School in Warwick, the principal of Holliman School, Kim Cabana, and Stephanie Lenihan, STEM Coordinator in Westerly, for contributing their time and expertise. Check out the video below!

Partnering to Improve Science Education - GEMS-Net at the University of Rhode Island

The video can also be found on our website, or you can access two versions through these direct links:

Please feel free to share these videos with your school community and families to promote the exciting and amazing science education programming within the GEMS-Net partnership! We look forward to continuing to develop resources that support teachers in providing high-quality science instruction for our students.

RIEEA Connections

This summer, the Rhode Island Environmental Education Association (RIEEA) will offer a workshop series exploring the intersection of art, education, and the environment. Interested in learning more about these workshops? Click on the flier below.

Research Corner

Many teacher leaders from multiple districts were excited to participate in our NSF (National Science Foundation) funded project helping URI/GEMS-Net researchers understand how children from PK - 12 perceive women scientists. Students were asked to draw a woman scientist at work. The drawings will be analyzed to better understand how women in STEM are perceived by students. Some of our teacher leaders will continue participating in the research by learning to code the drawings. This professional learning opportunity leverages teacher knowledge and provides opportunities for GEMS-Net teachers to engage in social science research. The findings from the study will inform an international audience.


In early data analysis, we are noticing that when students draw scientists doing activities that the students do in the classroom there is less gender stereotyping. That means by doing science regularly in the classroom, we can build a more inclusive science workforce!

Zachary Orefice
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