Gifted Atlanta

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.

If you have a child who has participated in the Duke TIP 4th-6th Grade Talent Search, you’re eligible to sign up now for any of three Academic Adventures programs at the University of Georgia in January, February, and March 2014.

Academic Adventures students choose a single topic to study during the full-day program on the UGA campus. There are more than a dozen subjects to choose from, including roller coaster physics, geocaching, forensics, sports medicine, the Civil War, storytelling, mini-vet school and a whole lot more.

Registration officially closes 15 days before the date of each session, but popular courses will fill up quickly.

If you haven’t registered your child with Duke TIP, it’s an easy process, and it gives you access to programs like Academic Adventures as well as information about raising gifted children.

This Saturday, November 9, the Fernbank Museum of Natural History will host “Science at Hand Day,” sort of a sampler menu of the sciences.

Visiting organizations, mostly from metro area universities, will offer hands-on activities in a variety of scientific fields, including chemistry, astronomy, ecology, structural engineering and neuroscience.

The activities are included as part of museum admission.

(Note: This event takes place at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, not the Fernbank Science Center. It can be confusing.)

Sparticl, a new web site focused on science and technology, has emerged from beta and is now available for public use.

The site features articles, videos and activities designed to nurture teens’ curiosity in STEM topics at an age when, unfortunately, many kids lose their natural interest in science.

Topics being covered on Sparticl right now include space junk, concussions, the physics of baseball, DNA fingerprinting, tornadoes, enzymes, and the science of chocolate. The site is well organized so visitors can browse the area that interests them most.

Teens can browse the site, comment on the content, even earn points and badges for their participation in the site.