Gifted Atlanta

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.

Registration is now open for the spring 2013 sessions of UGA-Duke TIP Academic Adventures, to be held March 2 and March 23.

These one-day programs, held on the UGA campus, give talented kids in 5th and 6th grades a chance to study topics of interest with other talented peers.

The registration deadline is Feb. 13 for the March 2 session, and March 8 for the March 23 session, but spaces won’t last until then. Two courses are already full, but slots remain in Bugbot Programming, the Physics of Filmmaking, Forecasting Severe Weather, Creating Graphic Texts, and a few others.

To participate, your child must have participated in the Duke TIP 4th/5th/6th Grade Talent Search. Not registered with Duke TIP? Learn more about how to get started so you can take advantage of opportunities like this one.

Tellus Museum is offering a coupon for $2 off admission through the end of December.

The museum, located just off I-75 in Cartersville, includes a large rock and mineral gallery, a fossil gallery, and interactive exhibits. The newest exhibit, called “Space Spin-offs,” showcases common technology that was originally engineered by NASA.

The coupon is available through the Tellus Facebook page.

Women in Engineering (WIE) will hold its annual “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” day on Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013 on the Georgia Tech campus. The four-hour program gives girls in 6th-8th grades the chance to meet professional engineers and engineering students — all women — do hands-on engineering projects, and play science-related games.

Girls attending the event also can compete for scholarships to summer camps that emphasize science, technology, engineering and math.

Registration is open now.

Have a student with an insatiable appetite for math? The Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science is offering Elements of Mathematics: Foundations, a series of online math courses for highly talented students. Students who complete the 15-course program can learn all of the high-school math curriculum — except calculus — while still in middle school.

The program’s web site says:

Elements of Mathematics: Foundations is not an accelerated version of the standard US mathematics curriculum. Instead it establishes foundational concepts that allow the suitably talented child to progress quickly through material for which others would require significant drill and practice. It then proceeds to cover concepts in a mathematically consistent way, incidentally covering all of the standard curriculum — and much, much more.

Students who complete the high-school curriculum while in middle school can move on to college-level courses — also available online through eIMACS — when they reach high school.

IMACS is offering the first course in the Foundations series free of charge, if you sign up by Dec. 31, 2012.

Tellus Museum in Cartersville offers three upcoming events:

Mineral Collecting and Identification – a primer on identifying minerals, starting a collection, and cleaning and cataloging samples. Includes a look behind the scenes at the mineral storage facility and the mineral preparation lab. Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Oddly, I couldn’t find this on the Tellus web site, but I got an e-mail about it, so I assume it’s happening.)

Family Science Night: LaserFest – Laser exhibits and a laser planetarium show. Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. Free with admission to the museum.

Digital Astronomy Workshop – In partnership with the Smithsonian Institute, Tellus is training a few select people to operate the MicroObservatory robotic telescopes in Arizona and Massachusetts. Workshop participants will learn how to give the telescopes instructions to capture specific images and download them to a laptop. (Bring your own laptop if possible.) The best captured images will be displayed in the museum. Saturday, Nov. 9, 2012, 8-11 p.m. Participation is limited to 60 people.

The mineral and digital astronomy workshops both have associated fees, and are limited to ages 8 and up, no exceptions.

To reserve a space in either workshop, call (770) 606-5700. For Family Science Night, no reservations needed.

START:CODE just keeps growing. This fall, they’re adding a new class for 4th and 5th graders.

Students will create digital art projects, stories and games using Scratch, a simple programming language created at MIT, designed to be used by kids with no programming background.

Elementary labs are six-week sessions held on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday afternoons (you pick one or the other). Once a student completes the Elementary Lab, they can move into START:CODE’s Starter Lab, where they can learn additional programming languages.

Register now. Classes start Nov. 3, 2012.

The Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP) has opened registration for its 4th-6th grade talent search.

When you enroll in the talent search, your child will have access to online enrichment opportunities, and you will have access to resources to help you raise your high-achieving student. Your child also will be eligible to attend Academic Adventures, weekend enrichment classes held a few times each year at the University of Georgia.

Kids in the 4th-6th grade talent search also may choose to take the ACT Explore exam, a standardized test traditionally given to 8th graders. This above-grade-level testing offers a way to better measure the achievement of kids who typically peg the meter on their grade-level standardized tests.

Once your child is accepted into 4th-6th TIP, benefits continue through their sixth-grade year; you don’t have to reapply each year.

To qualify for TIP, students must have tested in the 95th percentile or above on an achievement test in the past two years. (TIP does accept a few other tests. See the talent search web site for details.)

I’m always pleased to report on free youth concerts, and as I’m wont to say, it’s a great combination of exposure to classical music and the inspiration that comes from watching artistically gifted peers.

The Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony
Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 at 8 p.m.
Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts at Emory University

The Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony is the honor wind ensemble for high-school students from metro Atlanta. The musicians play college- and professional-level compositions.

Admission is free, but you should contact the box office ahead of time at (404) 727-5050 or by e-mail.