Gifted Atlanta

It’s a little late notice, but this weekend — including Monday — is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, which gives ordinary folks the chance to help collect data on local bird populations. All you need to do is spend 15 minutes recording the number and types of birds you see in one location, then send your data to the scientists. Your work helps ornithologists study how bird populations are growing, declining, or changing their ranges.

If you’ve got a shutter-bug in your home, they can enter the GBBC photo contest by sending in a picture by March 1.

If this weekend just won’t work for your young bird watcher — or if one weekend a year isn’t enough — you can count birds anytime using eBird, which collects data from all over the world for ornithologists, educators, and conservation biologists.

Kids can learn to capture photographs from the Smithsonian’s robotic telescopes by taking part in the Digital Astronomy Workshop, Friday, March 1, 2013, from 8 to 11 p.m. at the Tellus Museum in Cartersville.

The workshop will teach participants how to instruct the telescopes to capture images for download. As “homework,” these newly trained digital astronomers will be expected to process and share their best images with Tellus. Some of the images may be displayed at the museum.

Open to ages 8 and up. $15 for Tellus members, $30 for non-members. Call 770-606-5700, ext. 417 to register.

Creative Career Academy in Roswell will offer a day camp during spring break, April 8-12, 2013. Campers will learn computer animation, game design, app development and web design.

The camp is from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. Most campers will be between 10 and 16 years old, but slightly younger kids are welcome.

Creative Career Academy also offers after-school programs in technology, art, foreign language and more, and has some classes during daytime hours to accommodate homeschool students. They also have a summer camp, although the complete summer line-up is still under development.

Fernbank Science Center tells me they still have spaces open for next Friday’s  Science Night Out. The topic of the January 25, 2013 session will be junior engineering.

If that session isn’t convenient, registration will open next week for the Feb. 22 session on LEGO Mindstorm robotics.

Science Night Out is aimed at science lovers in 3rd – 6th grades. The program runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Registration is $15 for one child and $10 for additional siblings. Registration is by U.S. Mail only. The class will be filled on a first come, first served basis.

Build and launch a model rocket at Tellus Museum in Cartersville on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013, at Tellus Museum. The “Build and Blast” event is open to kids 8 and up.

Cost is $15 for Tellus members, $30 for non-members. The program runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Spaces are limited. Reserve a space by calling (770) 606-5700, ext. 417. Registration is open now for Tellus members; non-members can sign up starting Feb. 1.

*Note that this event is weather sensitive and will be rescheduled if there is rain or heavy wind.

For quick hits of inspiration, check out these five podcasts that appeal to gifted kids — especially those with a scientific bent:

1. 60-Second Science: A one-minute look at a scientific development, provided by Scientific American.
2. Astronomy Cast: Stories of the cosmos and the astronomers who study it.
3. MinutePhysics: Cool physics with a humorous twist.
4. Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day: Definitions and etymology of uncommon words.
5. The Stuff of Genius: Interesting inventions.

These podcasts also are available on iTunes.

Thanks to the Institute for Educational Advancement for compiling this list, and for Muriel Knope to sending it my way.

START:CODE has announced its line-up of interactive programming classes for January and February.

Students in 4th and 5th grades can learn Scratch, a simple programming language that can be used to create games and multi-media projects.

Middle-school and high-school labs, for kids in grades 6-12, offer hands-on instruction in a variety of languages, including Python and Java.

START:CODE also offers classes in the early afternoons for home-school students.

Classes begin next week.

The Wylde Center in Decatur, formerly known as the Oakhurst Community Garden, welcomes kids to a variety of nature and art programs. Coming up soon are a candle making class on January 13, and a paper making program on February 10. These classes are open to little kids as well as bigger kids — ages 5 and up for candle making; ages 4 and up for paper making — which puts them in that rare group of activities that cater to the curious preschool mind.

The center also has four public gardens where kids can see chickens, bees and a variety of vegetables. The gardens are free and open to the public daily.

Yesterday, I posted about the UGA-Duke TIP Academic Adventures programs for 5th and 6th graders. Today, I wanted to let you know that registration is also open for the spring 2013 programs for students in grades 8-11.

The next two UGA-Duke TIP Scholar Weekends will be Feb. 16-17 and April 20-21.

Unlike Academic Adventures, which requires that students be registered with the Duke-TIP Talent Search, the Scholar Weekends are open to any students who have been gifted identified by their school. This includes any students who are enrolled in honors, International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement or accelerated classes.

Topics this spring include architecture, science fiction, psychology, robotics, and public speaking, and several more.

Students arrive on the UGA campus on Saturday morning, spend the day learning, stay overnight at the Georgia Center hotel on the UGA campus, and continue their studies on Sunday. Courses are taught by UGA professors, graduate students, honors students, and gifted educators.

The deadline to register for the February weekend is Feb. 1; for the April session, you can register until April 5. Popular courses may fill before the registration deadline. For the February session, register by Jan. 4 to receive a $25 discount. The early bird discount for the April session will be available until March 8.

If you homeschool and are looking for something to do this Friday, you might want to check this out.

And if you homeschool and have a child who’s interested in dinosaurs, then you absolutely must check this out.

Tellus Museum is putting new arms on its Appalachiosaurus this Friday at 1 p.m. The museum will offer a lunch-and-learn session at noon, followed by the removal of the current arms on the display. They’re putting on shorter arms, because the latest research indicates the dinosaur’s arms weren’t as long as once thought. (The progress of scientific understanding among paleontologists will be the topic of the lunch-and-learn session.)

If you go, don’t forget to stop by the Tellus Facebook page to get a coupon for $2 off admission.