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GEM Environmental applied to have this AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps improve Prescott’s Community Nature Center for several months, in which time they completed an innumerable amount of projects. The work done by this NCCC team will leave a lasting legacy on the CNC, Prescott city trails, and our community.
Learn more about this project and its impact through a feature article in The Daily Courier.
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 Through our partnership with the Community Nature Center, GEM Environmental was able to host a two day field trip at the CNC for groups of 3rd and 4th graders from a nearby school, Abia Judd Elementary. GEM was able to provide these students with STEM based programming in an effort to support the classes which were falling behind curriculum guidelines. This field trip focused on maps, including identifying the parts of a map, making miniature trail systems, and reading a map to find clues and fill in an energy web. We were also able to create a virtual version of this field trip viewable on our YouTube channel!
 A local Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) class has been working at the CNC for a semester-long project in which they brainstorm new site developments and improvements at the Community Nature Center. GEM Environmental provided lessons for these 5th and 6th grade students on the Engineering Design Process, which includes ways of identifying, solving, and implementing a solution to a problem. In this way, they were able to make their ideas for the CNC more practical and presentable. The class focused their efforts on increasing attendance at the CNC by making more activities, such as a rock-climbing course, and making plans to build bathrooms at the CNC. They then brainstormed ways in which these projects could be followed through, and categorized them into simple steps following the Engineering Design Process. Several groups of students even presented their ideas and plans to local city officials. These students and their ideas will not only benefit the Nature Center and the Prescott community, but themselves as they have gained this valuable learning experience by helping those around them.
 On October 28th and 29th, GEM Environmental hosted a field trip for several classes from the Prescott Valley Charter School at a local park. The GEM team and seven of our amazing AmeriCorps Volunteers offered rotating stations that each class participated in for 45 minutes. This allowed each class to participate in 3 separate learning and educational activities. Each station focused on a different STEM related topic including Bird Migration Tag, Nature Crafts, and Act Like an Animal Yoga. This two day field trip had a turn out of over 250 students, and we cannot wait to host similar events in the near future!
To volunteer at future events fill out this form or email abbyruby@gemenvironmental.org.  GEM Environmental was able to give back to the community by spending a morning dedicated to cleaning up litter in and around Granite Creek Park. Our team met first thing in the morning at the park and divided into groups to maximize the ground covered. Our staff cleaned up areas along the creek, on the trails, and in the picnic area. We are grateful for our local parks, and hope we can be part of another clean up soon!
 Recently, GEM Environmental partnered with the Community Nature Center to provide kids from the Prescott Unified School District a space to learn about STEM. This program specifically meets the needs of underserved students in the district who necessitate a safe place to learn while schools are in hybrid and online learning. Our team wrote, planned, and taught lessons, all of which followed Covid-19 precautions through social distancing. The facilitation of this programming also supported the district in developing distancing and reentry plans to return to in-person school both part and full time. We met with these students twice a week to teach lessons while the CNC staff educated the students an additional two days per week. These kids ranged in age from kindergarten to sixth grade, and numbered anywhere from 5 to 30 students at a time! The GEM staff was able to explore various STEM fields in a meaningful and educational way. Our lesson plans ranged in topics from animal tracks, bird migration, beaks and diet, to soil and why it is important, dinosaurs, and plant identification. Visit the Community Nature Center's website to learn more about their community initiatives and programs. Learn more about these programs in this article featuring our partnership with the Community Nature Center!   GEM Environmental was able to give back to the community by spending several hours dedicated to helping build benches at the Community Nature Center (CNC). In this way, GEM was able to give back to the community and honor a new partnership between GEM Environmental and the CNC. For this service project, the GEM crew was able to provide physical assistance by screwing bench parts together, sanding the fully made benches, and placing them where they needed to go. We are so grateful that we were able to assist them and pitch in!
In another one of our experiment videos, our AmeriCorps State Member Jessica Certain shows how to write secret messages using grape juice and baking soda. In this video, she talks about acid and base reactions and uses this to write a secret phrase down. Watch the video here to find out what it says!
Over the summer, GEM Environmental created another set of science-themed videos consisting of experiments and fun projects that anyone could do from home. These experiments were simple allowing students, with some adult help, to do them at home with household supplies. In the video featured here, our AmeriCorps State Member Kali Plummer shows how to make an egg float by dissolving salt in a glass of water. By doing this demonstration, she explains what density is and how it works.
Throughout the spring of 2020, GEM Environmental was able to produce science-themed videos that aired daily during the week with new activities for kids to do at home. One set of videos featured Madison Link reading Women in Science, a book about 50 women who made a major difference in their respective STEM fields. In the video highlighted here, Madison shows a timeline of major events from 400 AD to now, highlighting various women’s accomplishments and adversities throughout history.
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