Gifted Atlanta

The first few lines of the message I received this week from Lisa Richardson said it all: Thanks for these great resources! I wish more of them were on the south side of town where we live. My little engineer is at a slight disadvantage. 😦 

Following the old adage, “Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness,” Richardson is starting Codenistas, a technology education program in East Point for middle-school girls. Students will meet on weekends to learn web design, programming and other technology skills.

Classes begin September 8. Register now — there are only 10 spaces in the fall program.

From time to time, parents ask me about homeschooling their gifted kids. Since this isn’t an option I’ve ever considered for my family, I rarely have any information to share.

But thanks to reader Christine M., I can now point you to at least one resource: the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum. GHF supports parents of children for whom traditional school isn’t the best fit. In addition to articles and lots of links to additional resources, GHF offers online courses for home-schooled gifted students.

I also am personally aware of two parents in the metro Atlanta area who are trying to form home-school groups for gifted kids. If you’re interested in getting in touch with them, e-mail me via the Contact page and I’ll share what I know.

As we get settled into the school year, it’s time to think about enrichment for 2012-13. Here’s a quick round-up of enrichment programs and their registration dates:

• Ben Carson Academy at the Morehouse School of Medicine: Yikes! The registration deadline is tomorrow, Aug. 15
• K.I.D.S. Club at Georgia Tech: Registration will open in early September. Expected program dates for fall 2012 are Nov. 3 and Dec. 1.
• Callanwolde: Registration is ongoing for classes in the visual and performing arts. Classes begin in late August or early September. Mostly offering adult classes, but a few selections for kids and teens.
• Start:Code: Registration is ongoing, as new students can start in these computer programming classes at any time.
• Saturday School at Georgia State: Registering students through Aug. 24 for the Fall A session.

Fall is also the time to establish teams for competitions including Destination ImagiNation, Odyssey of the Mind and FIRST robotics league. For a list of competitive programs, see the Enrichment page on this site. Starting a team may seem daunting, but the volunteers, existing coaches and coordinators are usually more than willing to assist, so if one of these programs sounds like a fit for your child, give it a try.

Georgia State University has posted its list of classes for the first fall 2012 session of Saturday School.

The 2012 Fall A session begins Sept. 8 and runs five consecutive Saturdays. Classes are offered in the mornings and afternoons on the GSU campus. Classes will be offered in a variety of topics in science, the arts, language and more.

Saturday School is open to children in kindergarten through 8th grade. The program is geared toward students who have been identified as gifted by their school, but kids who haven’t been formally identified can be granted provisional enrollment for one year.

The registration deadline is Aug. 24.

If you read this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, you may have seen an article announcing that Georgia Tech has joined a program that offers free, online college courses. The program is called Coursera, and it has dozens of classes, taught by professors at such schools as Princeton, Rice, Duke and Stanford, among others. More than just online lectures to view, Coursera classes have students interact with one another, ask questions, and take quizzes.

The Coursera consortium offers more than 100 courses. While most of them cover science and technology topics, there are a handful in the humanities, including classes in history, poetry, rhetoric, design and mythology.

Coursera classes do not earn college credits, but if your child is looking for higher-level teaching on a topic they love, an online course could help fill that need.

Rocketry enthusiasts can build and launch model rockets this Saturday, July 21 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 1 p.m. Spaces are limited. Reserve a space by calling (770) 606-5700, ext. 417.

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

I just got word from Fernbank Science Center that they’re having a celebration tomorrow (Saturday, June 30), that being the last day that visitors can access Fernbank Forest via the science center. (Without getting into too much background, effective July 1 the forest is becoming a privately held entity that will be separate from the science center and likely will charge an admission fee.)

Free planetarium shows and other activities are planned from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission, as always, is free.

Here’s something to bring a little science to your Independence Day celebration: This Friday at 7 p.m., Tellus Museum in Cartersville will host a lecture about the chemistry of fireworks. The lecture will be presented by Bob Gossman, who is a senior program manager for the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations and a former high-school chemistry and physics teacher. The lecture is included in the cost of admission to the museum. The galleries will be open until 9 p.m.

Parents of astronomy enthusiasts, take note: I just received word from the SPACE Club at Georgia Perimeter College that they’ll be hosting a special open house in the observatory on the Dunwoody Campus this Thursday evening. Here is the information as I received it from observatory supervisor David Penly:

SPACE Club invites you to the Dunwoody Observatory this Thursday, June 21, 7:30 to 10:00 pm to celebrate the summer solstice (a day late) and take a look at the Moon and the planet Mercury, which will be in conjunction that evening.

We’ll set up our telescopes before sunset to take a look at the Sun, which has been surprisingly active lately.  We can also see Mercury and the Moon in the daytime sky with our telescopes.  Later, as the sky gets darker we may be able to spot Mercury with our naked eyes.  Since it is always close to the Sun and never up when the sky is dark, it is hard to spot Mercury in the sky, though it is a fairly bright object.  On Thursday however, the proximity of the Moon will help us locate it.

After sunset at 8:51 pm we can also take a look at Saturn and Mars – a regular parade of solar system objects.  So stop by after classes or work and help us celebrate the balmy evenings of summer.  Refreshments will be served.  As always, viewing will be contingent on open skies, but good conversation will not:  bar pouring rain, the observatory will be open.

From the creative minds at Tellus Museum in Cartersville:

There will be an extra “tick” to the clock on June 30 as scientists add a leap second, and Tellus Science Museum is celebrating with a special contest for kids. One lucky child will get to be “Director for a Second,” giving our hardworking executive director a well-earned vacation.

Leap seconds are introduced periodically to keep up with Earth’s slowing down as it spins around its axis. A tiny effect, only 2 milliseconds have been added to the day in the last 188 years. Since the building of the great pyramid of Giza, 4500 years ago, the day has only grown 1/14 of a second longer. 

On Friday, June 29 at noon, Tellus Executive Director Jose Santamaria will take a one second vacation. The winning child will win a free entry into the museum for their family, a planetarium show, a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum, and a special gift bag.

 The contest runs through Thursday, June 21, and is open to children under 14. Entries can be e-mailed to TellusMuseum@gmail.com and must contain the child’s name, the parent’s name, phone number and e-mail address, along with what the child will do with their extra second.