Gifted Atlanta

The third round of K.I.D.S. Club and STEAM Workshop classes at Georgia Tech for the fall season will be held on Saturday, November 11, from 9 a.m. to noon.

K.I.D.S. Club is open to students in grades 2 through 5. STEAM Workshops are for students in grades 6 through 12. Workshops cover a variety of topics in physical science, computing and engineering.

Cost to attend is $65 per student. Need-based scholarships, funded by the Georgia Department of Education, are available. Visit the CEISMC BOOST Scholarship page to learn more about scholarship eligibility and submit an application.

I’ve written here before about Firefly Watch, a community science project run by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Each summer, Firefly Watch collects reports from people all over North America about the firefly activity around them. The project’s aim is to understand how firefly populations are changing and possible environmental factors affecting them.

The 2023 firefly season is now over, and Firefly Watch is looking for help analyzing the data it’s received during the past five years. An e-mail I received says:

“If you, or someone you know, are interested in combing through the Firefly Watch spreadsheets, please let us know. Perhaps there is a student looking for a project? Or a teacher who needs a project for a class? We have five years of data now, and it could yield some interesting information. We will be happy to share what we’ve collected.”

I’m sharing this mostly because I’m well aware of how hard it is for high-school students interested in the sciences to get hands-on experience in research. If you know a student who wants to study biology, ecology or a related field, this could be an opportunity to work on a real-world project.

If you want to learn more, contact Firefly Watch directly.