What Is GEM?

The Gateway to Educational Materials Catalog contains detailed descriptions of over 40,000 educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites.

For best results, use a two-step search process to identify items of interest to you. Then click on the title links to connect to the online resources.

First, in the "Search the GEM Catalog" box, enter a word or words that describe the information you are looking for. Generally, the Gateway retrieves a fairly large set of titles.

Next, refine the search results by clicking on the terms that are listed on the right side of the search results screen. For example, if you are interested in only lesson plans, refine the search results by clicking on "Lesson plans." Clicking additional terms refines the search results even more.

You can also refine the search results by typing more search terms in the text box, selecting "search in results," and clicking "go."

Retracing your steps: Your original search words and any refinements you selected are listed under "Items matching" on the right side of the search results screen. You can remove, or deselect, any term by clicking on the check box beside the term.

Connecting to a resource: Resources in the GEM Catalog are all accessible online, or described in more detail, at their respective web sites. To connect to a resource that appears in the list of search results, click on the title of the resource.

More Information on how to use GEM's Seamark search engine effectively.