Gifted Atlanta

The Vanderbilt Program for Talented Youth is now accepting applications from students in 10th through 12th grades for the spring 2022 session of its Mentor Immersion program.

The five-month, all-online mentorship program will begin in January 2022. Small groups of students will meet online once per week to learn under the guidance of an expert in the field. Students should expect to spend an additional two to four hours per week on assignments, including a research project.

(Does this sound like too much for your child to take on during the school year? PTY will offer a summer mentorship program, with dates running May-August and June-September. Join the PTY email list to be notified when applications for summer are available.)

Most topics of study are in life sciences. Classes in rhetoric, leadership, and law are also available.

This program is rigorous and the application requires a transcript, test scores, and an essay. PTY will conduct its first round of application reviews on November 2, 2021. After that date, PTY will use a rolling admissions process to fill spaces that aren’t already taken.

Tuition for the program is $2,750. Need-based financial aid is available.

The next session of Georgia Tech’s CEISMC programs will be Saturday, Oct. 23, and will be loosely tied into a Harry Potter theme.

K.I.D.S. Club, open to students in grades 2 through 5, will feature topics including catapults, potions, and “the magic of plants.”

Students in grades 6 through 12 can enroll in STEAM Workshops, with topics such as polymers, coding, and 3-D modeling.

The October workshops will be held in person, on the Georgia Tech campus, with the exception of one online option — a session on code, craft, and storytelling for middle-school students.

Future CEISMC workshops will be held on November 20 and December 11.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology invites anyone interested in birds or citizen science to take part in its October Big Day this Saturday, October 9.

By participating, you’ll be joining thousands of other birders around the world who are making note of birds they see. As with other citizen-science birding events, October Big Day helps scientists see patterns in bird populations and migrations.

You can be part of Global Big Day by watching for birds for as little as 10 minutes, anytime during the day, at any location — although if you’re looking for a birding hot spot, the Cornell Lab can make suggestions. You’ll log the birds you spot through the free eBird mobile app. I use this app myself. It’s not completely intuitive, but it’s pretty easy to learn using the online tutorial. Once you learn to use it for October Big Day, you can continue using it anytime to submit lists of the birds you see, as often (or as rarely) as you like.

If you’re new to birding, you may want to also download the Cornell Lab’s Merlin app, which can help you identify birds by size, by coloring, and even by song.