Growing Early Minds (GEM)

The GEM Program is located on the beautiful UW Madison campus. Our students eat lunch at Gordon Commons, located on the SE side of campus (770 W Dayton St.) and classroom locations are within walking distance to Gordon Commons. Badger Precollege works closely with UW Central Campus Reservations and individual building managers to secure space. This process takes time, as there are many other campus departments and programs scheduling space during the same blocks of time each summer. Individual classroom locations are not confirmed until late May at the earliest.

Yes! Lunch for your student is provided as a part of the cost of tuition. Gordon Avenue Market is an undergraduate residence dining facility serving cafeteria style options that offers many food choices each day. Badger Precollege staff will be supervising your child and assisting them in making healthy food choices. If your child has any dietary restrictions or allergies we need to be aware of, please be sure to include this information in your CampDocs online health profile. If a student has severe food allergies or a very restricted diet, they are welcome to bring their own lunch. (Tuition is not prorated in cases where a student brings their own lunch.) A good resource that includes daily menus may be found here. You may also email the nutritionists at UW Housing directly for more information or with questions/concerns at dietitian@housing.wisc.edu.

During GEM we plan 3-4 field trips per week following lunch. Field trips are supervised by our educational assistants and Badger Precollege Admin staff. Please keep in mind that ALL field trips are walking field trips around campus. Venues are chosen based on their proximity to the SE side of campus to accommodate young students walking, as well as being mindful of the very hot temperatures which often occur during GEM. For example, while a trip to the Children’s Museum on the square would be nice, this is simply too far to walk with this age group.
Occasionally, “field trips” come to us, with engaging speakers and presenters visiting our students in the afternoons. Past examples would be visits from the UW Insect Ambassadors and presenters from the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery.

Similar to securing classroom locations as described above, Badger Precollege partners with many other campus departments to secure field trips. Scheduling is complex, and many venues do not begin taking reservations for summer until the beginning of the Spring Semester (Late January) or much later. Venues need to secure staffing (typically UW undergraduate students) first to accommodate larger groups and this often does not occur until later in the spring. Past field trips include: UW Madison Campus Tours, The UW Geology Museum, The Chazen Museum, and more.

The afternoon block is supervised by Educational Facilitators, educational assistants, and Badger Precollege Admin staff. In addition to field trips, each afternoon includes a planned lesson, as well as an opportunity to explore various stations and socialize with classmates. Planned lessons may feature a sample lesson from one of our GEM courses not offered that session, or another topic of interest to the instructor.

Requests for late drop off and early pick up should be directed to the program manager/program coordinators. Advance notice is greatly appreciated.
While we try our best to accommodate requests, it is not always possible to accommodate specific times. The volume of requests we received increased tremendously over the past year, making this process more challenging. Our staffing numbers are based on a 1:10 staff to student ratio which we must maintain at all times.
Requests to pick up in the middle of the lunch/field trip block cannot be accommodated, as all staff are need to supervise lunch, we may be in transit during those times or already at a field trip location, and our schedule varies greatly from day to day. Similarly, if a student is picked up early it may be challenging to accommodate a request to drop the student back off later in the afternoon, for the same reasons stated above.
As a general rule, if your student has another commitment in the afternoon, we request that you pick up your student up at 11:30, following the morning instructional block.