Gifted Atlanta

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

The six-month, all-online mentorship program will begin in January 2021. Small groups of 3 to 6 students will meet once a week to learn under the guidance of an expert in the field. During the winter months, students will explore their selected topic. Then, in the spring, they’ll use what they’ve learned to complete independent research or a project.

The application went live today. The 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 3, 2020. After that date, PTY will use a rolling admissions process to fill spaces that aren’t already taken.

Tuition for the program is $2,500. Need-based financial aid is available.

Duke TIP announced it has ended its long-running Academic Talent Search Programs, in which students took above-level standardized tests — most often, sitting for the SAT or ACT as 7th graders.

They also have suspended all programming through spring 2021, and plan to hold their 2021 summer programs online.

From what Duke TIP has said publicly, Duke University was already looking at making changes to its pre-college programs, including Duke TIP. The university accelerated this review after the pandemic shut down Duke TIP’s residential Summer Studies program — a primary revenue stream in Duke TIP’s business model. This, in turn, resulted in significant layoffs in the Duke TIP offices.

Duke TIP said it still intends to offer enrichment to talented students, and will be looking for new ways to identify those students. Meanwhile, Duke TIP will continue to work with students who were part of previous talent searches to provide them with programs, research and resources.

Project Scientist invites girls ages 4 to 12 to register for STEM Club, a virtual learning program that includes online learning sessions and hands-on labs.

STEM Club participants have 90 minutes of live, online learning with an instructor each week. In addition, they’re shipped a lab kit each month that they use to explore that month’s scientific topic. (The themes for the next two sessions are elastic energy and sound.)

The classes are divided based by age — kindergarten through 2nd grade, 3rd and 4th grade, and 5th through 7th grade.

A two-month membership in STEM Club is $250. The registration deadline for the October session is Sept. 30, 2020.

Registration is now open for the Vanderbilt PTY Online Academy, month-long classes for students in grades 3 through 12. Students in the academy will meet together in an online classroom for around three hours per week, then complete assignments on their own.

Starting dates for class sessions are October 12, 2020; November 9, 2020; January 11, 2021; and February 8, 2021. Meeting days and times vary. (Pro tip: As you look at the schedule, bear in mind that all times listed are Central time, not Eastern.)

Course choices include law, debate, pop culture, psychology, ecology, film making, neuroscience, comedy, and many more.

Tuition is $250 per class. Need-based financial assistance may be available.

Take a virtual tour of Georgia’s barrier islands with Dr. Tony Martin, a paleontologist and ichnologist (that means he studies the tracks and traces that animals leave behind; yes, I had to look it up). He’ll show examples of animal markings and talk about what we can learn from them.

The event will be this Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 12:15 p.m., on Facebook live (on the Tellus Museum Facebook page) and YouTube live (on Tellus Museum’s YouTube channel). It’s part of Tellus Museum’s ongoing “Lunch + Learn” series.

You’re invited to submit questions about fossils or tracks on the event page ahead of time.

Emory Math Circle is a place for kids who think math is cool.

Students in grades 6 to 12 use games, puzzles and problems to look more deeply at how math works and discover fundamental advanced math concepts. Groups are taught by Ph.D. students from the Emory Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

This fall, Math Circle will meet on Saturdays — about twice a month — via Zoom.

Interested students have until September 16 to register. The program is free, although donations are appreciated.

Georgia Tech’s CEISMC program has scheduled a series of single-day workshops this month, covering a variety of STEAM topics:

• Kirigami: The Art of Paper Engineering (Grades 6-8)
• Design Your Own Board Game Using the Engineering Design Process (Grades 6-8)
• Game Creation with Micro:bit (Grades 6-8)
• Game Creation Using Scratch (Grades 4-5)
• Human Powered Generator (Grades 6-8)

Each workshop lasts two hours. Cost is $18 per workshop, plus supplies, which you have to purchase on your own.

For more than 25 years, VOX has been supporting the self-expression of Atlanta’s teens through print and online publications. Here are three ways Atlanta teens can get involved with VOX right now:

1. VOX is now accepting applications for its fall 2020 teen staff. The programming year will start with virtual meetings only. Activities may move to in-person as circumstances allow.
   
2. VOX is running its Atlanta Teen Survey to find out what’s on teens’ minds. They use the survey results to guide VOX programming. They also share this information with people who work with teens.
   
3. Teens are always invited to submit their original stories, art or poetry to VOX’s Atlanta Teen Voices.

Harvard University has nearly 200 online courses in the humanities, social sciences, computer science, mathematics and more, with many offered at no charge.

Among the class topics are classical music, Shakespeare, religion, the science of cooking, game development, ancient Egypt, probability, Japanese scroll art, architecture, rhetoric, neuroscience, and bioethics . . . plus a lot more.