A GEM of an Idea

The kits provide all the materials for students to investigate science (biology, earth science, chemistry) and math (probability, geometry, multicultural arithmetic) with inquiry based, hands-on activities. The kits and teacher guidebooks listed below are available on a loaner basis to teacher members.  Non-teacher members may borrow a kit for $50.  Restocking and shipping fees are charged on all loans.For those wishing to expand their math and science teaching ability, GEMS professional development workshops will be offered!

To learn more about GEMS, teacher memberships and how you can borrow these materials, contact Sue Douglas at suedouglas@sd-discovery.com or call 224-8295.  Or, you can fill out the Kit Rental Form and send with payment to SD Discovery Center, 805 W Sioux Ave.; Pierre, SD 57501 (suedouglas@sd-discovery.com). 

KIT LIST

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Station Kits

Station kits are designed in a "festival" format with children rotating from station to station.  The activities are adaptable to a wide range of ages.

Build It! Festival Grades K-6
This unit’s wealth of learning-station activities help students make real-world connections as they focus on construction, geometric challenges, and spatial visualization. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Bubble Festival Grades K-6
These captivating, bubble-centric tabletop learning stations are packed with math and science content. The unit includes detailed teacher assistance and classroom logistics, writing and literature extensions, and tips for setting up an all school Bubble Festival. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply and SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.

Investigating Artifacts Grades K-6
This kit brings together three activities related to anthropology and archaeology and drawn from diverse Native American and world cultures. Students sort and classify natural objects found on a class walk and then make their own masks from these materials. Teams of student scientists carefully sift through “artifacts” in a shoebox midden, and the class creates its own stories or myths to explain natural phenomena. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Terrarium Habitats Grades K-6
These life-science activities bring the natural world into your classroom and deepen children’s understanding of and connection to all living things. Students investigate soil; design and populate terrariums; and observe and record changes over time. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

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Grades PreK - 1

Eggs, Eggs Everywhere
This unit introduces children to the amazing egg and then explores related life science concepts. In addition to observation and skills used in science, this kit uses role-playing, drama, and art to teach about the diversity of animals that come from eggs. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Elephants and Their Young
Elephants – their huge size, unique body structure, and fascinating social behavior – appeal to our sense of wonder. This kit draws on this interest to teach mathematical and physical science concepts including measurement, weight, volume and comparisons. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Ladybugs
Children learn about the ladybug’s anatomy, life cycle, behavior and favorite foods. Each child uses a magnifying “bug box” to observe live ladybugs. Math is an integral part of this unit, and role-playing is interwoven throughout the activities. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Penguins & Their Young
This appealing guide addresses important math concepts and skills as children learn about the adaptations and habitat of the emperor penguin. With role-play, drama, and multisensory games, children integrate language learning with mathematics and the physical and life sciences. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Tree Homes
These activities focus on appreciation for trees and the animals that live in them, stimulating children’s interest in the natural world and emphasizing the biological need for warmth and shelter. Students use role-play to understand adaptation and deepen their math learning by sorting, classifying and measuring. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

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Grades K - 2

Sifting Through Science
Young students explore buoyancy, magnetism, and the use of tools as they investigate the physical properties of objects. They use learning stations that allow for open-ended explorations to solve a design challenge. Each activity leads students to a greater knowledge of these properties. The final activity challenges students to solve an interesting problem: how to separate the various components of simulated garbage. To solve the problem, students must apply the knowledge gained in the previous activities. Donor: SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.

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Grades K - 3

Buzzing A Hive
This guide explores the complex social behavior, communication, and hive environment of the honeybee through activities that mix art, literature, role-play, and drama. (Live bees are not a part of this unit.)

Frog Math
This series of lively activities jumps off from one of the well-known “Frog and Toad” stories, The Lost Button. The story leads to free exploration then sorting and classifying buttons. A Frog Pond board game helps students develop strategic thinking skills, and the Hop to the Pond game is an experiment in probability and statistics. Donor: SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program

Treasure Boxes
Most kids have a box or other container where they keep the small treasures of childhood safe from the prying eyes of siblings and inquisitive parents. This kit is a collection of activities centered on these small treasures. The activities marry math, literature, and cooperative learning in a captivating format. Donor: SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.

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Grades K - 4

Group Solutions
This kit focuses on cooperative learning, providing young students with early and valuable experience in working and solving problems together. It also shows how to motivate students to cooperate. Donor: SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.

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Grades 1 - 3

Secret Formulas
In these compelling physical science activities, children investigate the properties of substances as they make their own personal brands of toothpaste, paste, cola, and ice cream. The unit provides real-life experiences with chemistry and conveys key science/math skills and concepts including cause and effect. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply and SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Progam.

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Grades 2 - 5

Mystery Festival
Includes 2 5-session mysteries; one for younger students, the other for older students. Students become detectives as they learn to observe, conduct crime lab tests, and analyze results, and apply their knowledge to solve the mystery. Crime lab tests include thread tests, powder tests, DNA, chromatography, fingerprinting, and more. Donors: Carolina Biological Supply & SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers

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Grades 2 - 6

Aquatic Habitats
Student groups set up models of a living pond in the classroom. Then they use hands-on activities to study the dynamic interaction of plants and animals. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

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Grades 3 - 5

Math on the Menu
Math, Mexican food and problem-solving strategies may seem like an unlikely combination, but this kit successfully integrates them all to provide students with practical mathematical challenges. Student expand their math and problem-solving skills as they develop recipes, analyze costs, set prices, and refine logistics to help the Rosada family manage and grow its Mexican restaurant. Donor: SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.

Space Sciences
Students learn fundamental concepts in space science using the Sun-Earth-Moon system as the focus. Through models, hands-on activities, and readings, students explore topics such as planet size and distance, Earth’s shape and spin, gravity the apparent movement of the sun and stars, moon phases and eclipses. Each of the 4 units in the sequence contains 4 to 9 60-minute sessions. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

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Grades 3 - 6

Electric Circuits: Inventive Physical Science
This flexible unit opens with conductors, insulators and simple closed circuits; these early sessions can combine to serve as a basic electricity unit. In later, more advanced sessions, students read circuit diagrams, build circuits, and learn about parallel circuits. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

In All Probability: Investigations in Probability & Statistics
Students gain confidence in these concepts as they investigate chance, gather and analyze data, make predictions and draw conclusions. Provides a solid basis for the development of real-life understandings and skills. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Schoolyard Ecology
Students are introduced to biological sampling techniques and mapping as they survey their schoolyards ecosystem. Based on the results of their survey, they select their favorite part of the schoolyard and then write about it in a concluding activity. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

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Grades 4 - 8

Crime Lab Chemistry
Students become “crime lab chemists” who try to determine whick black pen was used to write a ransom note. Using paper towels, black ink, and water, students learn about paper chromatography. Donated by Carolina Biological.

Microscopic Explorations
Students explore the microscopic world in 10 captivating learning stations. These stations, such as pond life and crystals, present a potpourri of investigations designed to pique students’ interest in science. After they complete the 10 stations, students have the opportunity to show what they have learned at the 11th station, which can be used as a wrap-up or a quiz. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Oobleck: What Do Scientists Do?
In this immensely popular unit, the strangely behaving substance called Oobleck provides students authentic insight into real-world scientific inquiry. Students are totally engaged in observation, hands-on investigation, a scientific convention, and spacecraft design. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

QUADICE
Mental Math, fractions, and teamwork are the keystones of this kit. Students work in teams of 3 to solve problems in mental math, manage fraction, use strategy, and consider probability – all in an exciting game format. Teams use a set of 4 dice to play 12 rounds involving any mix of addition, subtraction, division and multiplication problems. To promote teamwork, there is a cooperative-learning option that rewards a high group score. Donor: SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.

Stories in Stone
This earth-science unit explores the formation of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Students distinguish between and classify rocks and minerals, observe formation of salt crystals and make crystal shapes, and use clay-modeling activities to learn about the rock cycle and more. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Vitamin C Testing
Teach students some basic chemistry techniques and consumer savvy at the same time. Students use titration, comparison, data collection, calculation and graphing to evaluate the vitamin C content of different juices. Then they compile their data and create graphs to present their results. Additional studies include how environment, storage, and temperature affect vitamin content and show how to determine the nutritional value of some popular beverages. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply.

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Grades 5 - 8

Earth, Moon & Stars
Students learn a great deal about Earth and astronomy with modeling and observation activities that focus on gravity, shape of our planet, moon phases and eclipses, and the stars. A questionnaire of Earth’s shape and gravity makes an excellent pre- and post-assessment tool. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply

Environmental Detectives
After learning that fish and other wildlife near Synchrony City and its rural surroundings have been dying, students become environmental detectives. Once armed with the appropriate chemical and biological tests, they try to figure out if chlorine, oil pollution, acid rain, erosion-or just what-is causing the wildlife deaths. Kit contains for prepaid delivery of perishable materials. Return coupon at least two weeks prior to requested delivery date to ensure prompt arrival of materials. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply.

Math Around the World
This stimulating unit uses games and puzzles from many continents to explore mathematics in a multicultural, international context. Each game can be presented as a two or three-session activity or as a stand-alone learning station. Maps and historical connections provide a social studies element. Donors: Carolina Biological Supply & SD 21st Century Community Learning Centers

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Grades 6 - 8

The Real Reason for the Season
Seasons change, but do students know why? Use this innovative kit to teach them how the interaction between the Sun and Earth creates the seasons and to overcome common misconceptions. Activities include a virtual trip to the sun to establish the shape of earth’s orbit, observing sunlight and temperature data from different places on earth, and modeling how the concentration of sunlight is affected by the angle at which it strikes earth. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply.

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Grades 7 - 8

Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect
Students explore this crucial topic through a variety of formats. The unit presents scientific theories and evidence and helps students see environmental problems from different points of view. Donor: Carolina Biological Supply.

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Parent/Adult Learning

Parent Partners: Workshops to Foster School/Home/Family Partnerships
Parent Partners provides parents and other caregivers with concrete, practical things they can do to help their children succeed in school. This kit is designed for educators and activists parents seeking to increase parents involvement in their child’s education. The varieties of tools in this kit educate parents about current approaches in science and mathematics education and about the enormous positive education impact parents can have.