The Piqua Community Foundation awards mini-grants each spring and fall to applicants needing a small amount of money (up to $500) to implement a worthwhile project. Twenty-seven seventh graders at Piqua Catholic School became gemstone miners last spring, thanks to a mini-grant obtained by their science teacher, Joyce Thornberry.

Thornberry outlined the objectives of the GEMSS project – Gems Engaging Middle School Students. “The students saw characteristics and properties common to all minerals and identified specific minerals by testing their chemical and physical properties. They experienced the mining of gemstones from washing and searching through mine tailings, to identifying the minerals, to finally polishing the samples in a rock tumbler.”

Thornberry expressed her appreciation to The Piqua Community Foundation for funding the project, which sparked her students’ knowledge and enthusiasm for geology in the seventh grade science curriculum.

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