Gifted Atlanta

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Midtown is offering its first ever summer camps for children.

Kids ages 5 to 10 can take part in Arts Exploration Camp, while older kids, ages 11 to 17, are invited to Arts Immersion Camp. Each is a two-week camp, meeting from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m daily. Each day, the students will be introduced to a new medium and given time to create.

Spaces are limited.

Mercer University’s Atlanta campus offers a three-day summer program this July to introduce high-school students to pharmacy and pharmaceutical science.

The Pharmacy Scholars Summer Program is open to rising sophomores, juniors and seniors. The program is led by Mercer faculty and students, as well as working pharmacists. In a mix of workshops and labs, students will learn about compounding, drug information, patient care, pharmacy careers, and what’s required to apply to a pharmacy school.

Tuition is $150. Financial assistance may be available to qualified families.

Deadline to apply is April 30, 2014.

Cambridge International School at Buckhead is offering a series of one-week summer camps for preschoolers and younger elementary school students.

This prep-school / preschool follows the theory of multiple intelligences, and it shows in the variety of their camp themes. Camp weeks focus on everything from the kinesthetic (cheerleading and maker/builder weeks) to linguistic (Portugese and Spanish) to the interpersonal and intrapersonal (happiness week).

The camps are open to children from ages 2 1/2 to 8.

Ivy Bridge Academy is offering week-long debate camps throughout June and July for rising 4th through 12th graders.

For elementary-age students, the camps focus on the basics of public speaking and research. The middle-school camp is designed for students with some debate experience and delves deeper into the foundations of formal debate. High-schoolers work on advanced skills in competitive debate.

For the right kid — one who enjoys both history and performance — this could just be the coolest camp ever.

The DeKalb History Center invites kids ages 10 to 14 to a one-week junior docents camp that will teach them how research, voice and diction, storytelling, and public speaking all come together in the performance art of being a museum docent. The junior docents spend the week learning, then on Friday lead a tour for their parents and a young audience.

The camp takes place at the museum, which is located in the old DeKalb County Courthouse in downtown Decatur.

Wheeler High School’s Science, Math & Technology Magnet School will offer two, week-long, science and engineering summer camps at its Marietta campus.

Current middle-school students (rising 7th, 8th and 9th graders) can attend the Science Spectrum camp, June 2-6, 2014. Campers will explore robotics, chemistry, forensics and more. Part of the camp is an overview of the topics; the remainder gives the kids time to focus on one area of interest.

June 23-27, Wheeler welcomes girls who are rising 4th, 5th or 6th graders to Camp GAMES. According to the web site description, this camp exposes the students to the same science and engineering topics but does not have the campers working on independent projects.

The CougarBots, a robotics team made up of students at DeKalb County’s Henderson Middle School and Lakeside High School, will run a one-week programming camp this summer for rising 3rd-6th graders.

The camp will be led by the students and their coaches, who will introduce children to the simple Scratch programming language and LEGO NXT robotics programming.

The CougarBots camp will take place June 9-13, 2014, on the campus of Henderson Middle School. Cost is $150.

For more information or to register, download the camp’s flyer, or contact the group via e-mail.

I almost never post anything here that’s not located in the metro Atlanta area, but I’m making an exception because this camp just sounds so lovely — and it’s only a few hours’ drive away.

The Appalachian Institute for Creative Learning has posted its program details and registration for 2014. Held each summer at Warren Wilson College in western North Carolina, this enrichment camp offers children ages 8-17 (rising 3rd – 12th graders) the chance to learn about topics that interest them. This summer’s choices include creative writing, performance art, chemistry, computer logic, Greek mythology and more than I can possibly list here.

What I adore about the AICL curriculum is that — unlike in many programs for gifted kids — it’s not so STEM heavy. Sure, this program offers physics-related classes, but it also has a class in jug bands and another in creating costumes from newspapers. And even the physics classes are taught in a fun context (e.g., trebuchets). I just can’t think of any other summer program I’ve seen that does more to honor the many varieties of gifted children.

There’s a day camp option, as well as a residential camp.

Students need not be gifted identified by their school to attend. As the camp’s web site puts it, “[W]e call our campers motivated learners, figuring anyone who shows up to take biology, math, or art in July is motivated.”

Middle-school and high-school debaters are invited to hone their skills and prepare for the 2014-15 debate season by taking part in summer programs offered at Emory University and the University of Georgia.

Both programs are open to beginning and experienced debaters, with the students divided into groups based on their experience levels. Students conduct research and work on communication and logic skills.

Emory’s program, the Emory National Debate Institute, offers sessions ranging from two weeks to six weeks. Middle-school students will attend a day camp at Pace Academy. The sessions for high-school students will take place on the Emory campus. Students typically live in dormitories throughout the session, but a commuter option is available with a slight cost savings.

The University of Georgia’s Georgia Debate Institutes is open to rising 7th to 12th graders and offers sessions lasting one, two or three weeks. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The application deadline is June 10; there is a discount if you apply before May 1. Again, students may choose to commute daily to the campus instead of living in a campus dorm, and commuting students will receive a tuition discount.