META24 WORKFORCE LAB · GRADED TO THE CORE · PROJECT-BASED · A COURSE IN JEWELRY & GEMOLOGY · MIDDLE SCHOOL · UPPER SCHOOL · GRADE 6–12 · 0.25 CREDIT · META24 LAB COMPETENCIES
Gemology
The Stone Room · where stones come from · in The Bench · Jewelry
8 weeks of The Bench · Jewelry: The Oldest Craft · How the Earth Makes a Stone · The Prospector · The Chemistry of Shine · The Ice Files …
The weeks are the course’s own, read from the lab; the catalog pads the last weeks with the capstone and the floor so the course fills a whole term.
THE MIX · HOW MUCH OF EACH CORE SUBJECT THIS COURSE CARRIES · IN ORDER
ART & DESIGNSCIENCEHISTORY, GEOGRAPHY & HUMANITIESREADING & WRITINGTECHNOLOGY & TRADESBUSINESS & ENTERPRISEMATHCODING & AI
The squares are a picture of a course — how much of each core subject its own rooms carry, read from the rooms’ text — never a score of a student. Every course in a lab is graded to the core across the board; the squares say which columns it feeds most.
WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO
- Chains as language → 100,000-year-old beads · Egypt’s gold · Rome’s signet · the Renaissance bench · Tiffany
- Igneous / metamorphic / sedimentary · heat + pressure + time · diamonds from 100 miles down · pearls the one gem an animal makes
- Where the stones are and WHY — geology as a treasure map, then the geography game.
- Crystal systems · corundum = ruby AND sapphire (one trace atom!) · Mohs · why it sparkles
AT A GLANCE · 9 WEEKS
Q1 The Oldest Craft → The floor — The assignments · weeks 1–9
ALSO IN JEWELRY & GEMOLOGY · THE BENCH · JEWELRY
A quarter
9 WEEKS · ONE QUARTERQuarter 1 · The Oldest Craft → The floor
WEEKS 1–9 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 1The Oldest CraftTHE STONE ROOM · WHERE STONES COME FROM
Chains as language → 100,000-year-old beads · Egypt’s gold · Rome’s signet · the Renaissance bench · Tiffany. The Timeline Vault.
WK 2How the Earth Makes a Stone
Igneous / metamorphic / sedimentary · heat + pressure + time · diamonds from 100 miles down · pearls the one gem an animal makes. The Forge.
WK 3The Prospector
Where the stones are and WHY — geology as a treasure map, then the geography game.
WK 4The Chemistry of Shine
Crystal systems · corundum = ruby AND sapphire (one trace atom!) · Mohs · why it sparkles. The Trace-Atom Lab.
WK 5The Ice Files
Diamonds — the 4 Cs, the manufactured “Forever,” blood diamonds, lab-grown.
WK 6The Pairing Board
Which stones sing together — color theory wearing gems.
WK 7The Temperature of Stones
Will it survive the torch? Chemistry becomes shop discipline.
WK 8The Appraiser’s Eye
The identification gauntlet + why one sapphire is $80 and another $8,000. The Dossier.
WK 9The floor
The floor: the work is done in the room, logged in the room, kept in My Work.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The assignments · weeks 1–9
The question. What does The Stone Room ask you to be able to do by week 8?
The make. Every week's assignment and the quiz as practice: The Oldest Craft · How the Earth Makes a Stone · The Prospector · The Chemistry of Shine …
The evidence. Handed in through The Stone Room inside The Bench · Jewelry, kept in My Work; the Report reads it from there.
A course is a quarter, a semester or a year — nine, eighteen or thirty-six weeks — a project a quarter. Offered as the year, a semester or a quarter, it is the same course seen through a window. A lab is a family: its year, each of its tracks as a course, and its rooms. The evidence is what a student hands in through the room; the Report reads it from there. Nothing in the catalog is a grade.
THE PASS · THIS COURSE AND EVERY OTHER ONE
One pass includes Gemology and every course in the catalog. Pick a pass, or enter a school code; checkout stays on this page.