GEMS and Standards
GEMS
units can play a powerful role
in supporting standards and benchmarks for educational excellence.
Below is a listing of correlations between various State and National
standards and GEMS Teacher's Guides. In a few cases we do not have an actual correlation but a suggested sequence of units that address a significant number of the grade level standards. At the bottom of this page
you will also find information about GEMS Handbooks relating to
standards.
National Standards
GEMS units align with and can
be used to support the main content categories of the National
Science Education Standards (NSES). GEMS guides and pedagogical handbooks can serve as a strong support to the NSES and other leading benchmarks and guidelines, as well as multiple state and district standards, and the curriculum standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Two gems handbooks, The Rainbow of Mathematics and The Architecture of Reform, provide detailed information on how GEMS guides contribute to these national efforts to achieve excellence and provide high-quality science and mathematics experiences for all students.
GEMS activities put into effective practice the inquiry-based approach called for in these documents. GEMS units are closely correlated to the major areas of content and process knowledge and skills outlined in national and state standards. GEMS guides that focus on mathematics and the many guides that integrate science and math provide excellent opportunities for students to explore the major mathematic strands articulated by the NCTM and leading math educators.
The title page of a GEMS guide highlights opportunities for student learning derived from activities in the guide. These teaching opportunities include skills, concepts, themes, mathematics strands, and nature of science categories. Themes are key recurring ideas that cut across all disciplines. In the NSES these are called “unifying concepts and processes.” By listing the themes and strands that run through a particular GEMS unit on the title page, we hope to assist you in seeing where the units fit into the “big picture,” how it connects to other GEMS units, and how it can be utilized for the curriculum that supports national, state, and district recommendations in science and mathematics.
In addition, GEMS has made a number of
resources available for educators that relate to standards:
The Architecture of Reform:
GEMS and National Standards, in addition to a concise
history of how standards and benchmarks came to be, provides
many examples of how GEMS can be used in support of national
standards, a chart which summarizes where GEMS guides fit into
the content standards, and other information on GEMS curriculum
sequences.
The GEMS handbook for early-childhood
educators, Science and Math
Explorations for Young Children, contains descriptions
of age-appropriate National Science Education Standards and
the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards
along with all the GEMS and GEMS/PEACHES early-childhood guides
that align with those standards.
Another handbook, The Rainbow
of Mathematics, relates GEMS mathematics guides to the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards.
If you and/or an institution or group you
work with have aligned the GEMS units and curriculum sequences
you use to state or other standards, we would very much like to
see what you have done in full and glorious detail. Having this
information will assist GEMS national workshop presenters and
GEMS Associates in many ways. We will gladly send you a GEMS guide
or handbook of your choice if you are kind enough to send your
work to:
GEMS Standards Aligment
C/O Florence Stone, GEMS Editor
University of California, Berkeley
Lawrence Hall of Science #5200
Berkeley, CA 94720-5200
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