Gifted Atlanta

You can learn the science behind some of Georgia’s most popular natural destinations by attending guided geology walks and talks this month with a noted science educator from the Fernbank Science Center.

Dr. Bill Witherspoon is co-author of the book Roadside Geology in Georgia (Mountain Press Publishing, 2013). He is an award-winning earth science teacher who has worked with K-12 students for more than 15 years.

Dr. Witherspoon’s public program schedule is as follows:

• June 6, 2014, 11:00 a.m., Amicalola Falls, walk to the falls
• June 7, 2014, 1:00 p.m., Amicalola Falls, “River Rivalries,” a presentation on how competing streams sculpted geological features including Tallulah Gorge and Amicalola Falls
• June 7, 2014, 3:30 p.m., Dahlonega Gold Museum, “Gold and Georgia,” a presentation about how gold accumulated in the Georgia mountains, leading to the Georgia gold rush
• June 14, 2014, 9:30 a.m., Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park, walk along Pine Mountain. Co-presenter at this site will be Dr. Leslie Edwards, a biogeographer from Georgia State University who will look at the unusual combination of plant life at Pine Mountain.
• June 28, 2014, 1:00 p.m., Brasstown Bald, “A Window through Time: Geology and Nature at Georgia’s Highest Summit,” co-presented with Dr. Edwards, who will discuss why some plants typically not found this far south still grow atop this mountain.
• June 29, 2014, 1:00 p.m., Anna Ruby Falls, geology walk

These events are free and open to the public, but you may have to pay admission to the venues where they are being held. Register ahead of time and you’ll receive a billion-year-old rock sample.

Readers,

I have to apologize for the error in my recent post about the lunar eclipse. It is not tonight / tomorrow morning, but rather took place early this morning, a few hours ago.

My understanding is that because the skies were overcast last night, there was no available viewing in our night sky here in Atlanta, so in the end, visitors to Tellus were not able to see the eclipse through the telescopes, only through videos shot elsewhere. Still, it’s always my aim to be accurate, so I felt obliged to publish this correction.

Thanks for your understanding.

– Dori

It’ll take pulling an all-nighter, but if you want to witness a total lunar eclipse, head to Tellus Museum in Cartersville in the wee hours of Monday night / Tuesday morning.

Tellus will open its doors at 1 a.m. and remain open until 5:30 a.m., with all telescopes pointed at the moon. The eclipse will begin shortly before 2 a.m., and will be in totality at 3:06 a.m.

Regular admission for non-members; free for museum members.

This spring, Georgia State University has partnered with the Forsyth County School System to offer Saturday School at Lambert High School in Suwanee. Classes begin this Saturday, April 5 and the registration deadline is April 3. (Sorry I’m getting this to all of you so late — I’m just finding out about it myself.)

This satellite campus means that people living in Cumming, Woodstock, or Buford — who may not have wanted to make the trek to Georgia State’s downtown campus on Saturday mornings — now have easier access to Saturday School, which has built a great reputation over its nearly 40-year history for offering enrichment classes to kids who would like to learn more about topics of special interest alongside other gifted kids.

As always, admission to Saturday School requires that a child be gifted identified by his or her school; however, a new Saturday School student can be granted provisional admission until paperwork is submitted.

The Lambert High School campus Saturday School will be open to students in grades 4 through 8.

Science lovers, rejoice.

The Atlanta Science Festival kicks off this Saturday, offering a solid week of science-related activities on more topics than I’m going to list here. They’ve got robotics, biology, environmental science, astronomy, and more, at locations in and around Atlanta.

It all culminates in the Exploration Expo, a huge, free event on Saturday, March 29, at Centennial Olympic Park. Dozens of companies and schools will host hands-on activities geared toward kids and families.

The festival is a joint effort among Emory University, Georgia Tech, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. If all goes well, they’re hoping to make it an annual springtime ritual.

The Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (IMACS) offers new students a 25 percent discount on its online series of math courses for highly talented students — but only through this Friday, Jan. 31, 2014.

The discount applies when you purchase the five-course set: Operational Systems; The Integers; Sets, Subsets & Set Operations; Ordered n-Tuples; and the newly released Mappings course, which looks at relationships between the elements of sets.

IMACS is intended for middle-school students whose high intellect enables them to learn foundational concepts of math, which are then applied to topics in the standard high-school math curriculum. Completing the Elements of Mathematics: Foundations coursework in middle-school will enable these kids to take IMACS’ college-level math courses during high school.

Looking for something to do on Monday when school’s out? How about a free visit to the Atlanta History Center?

The museum is waiving its admission fee for the day. Exhibitions feature the Civil War, folk art, the Centennial Olympic Games, civil rights, and Native American history. You can also visit the the museum’s historic houses: the 1860 Smith Family Farm and the 1928 Swan House. (If you aren’t sure your kids will want to tour a century-old mansion, perhaps you can entice them with the fact that the Swan House was one of the locations where “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” was filmed.)

VerbalEyze, a group committed to fostering creative expression among young writers, presents two open mic sessions this Saturday, January 18, 2014:

• 1:00 p.m. at the Clayton County main library, 865 Battle Creek Road, Jonesboro
• 3:00 p.m. at Community Grounds Coffee Shop, 1297 Jonesboro Road, Atlanta

The events are open to the public.

Registration is open for the first spring 2014 session of Georgia State University’s Saturday School for Scholars and Leaders. Classes are offered to students in kindergarten through 8th grade. Choices include a variety of topics in math, science, writing, art and more. They’ve even got a few LEGO classes on the list.

Classes will meet on four consecutive Saturdays, beginning February 1. Sessions are held in the mornings and afternoons, although the morning has two advantages: 1) more choices of classes; and 2) free parent seminars, which are held while the children are in class.

To qualify for admission to Saturday School, a student must meet scoring requirements on an achievement test or IQ test and have a recommendation from the testing psychologist or the school the student attends. New students can be granted provisional admission for one year without submitting the required documentation.

Registration deadline for the Spring A session is Jan. 20.