Gifted Atlanta

Fernbank Science Center in Decatur is now accepting applications for its 2013 sessions of Aviation Camp, a one-week summer day camp for students who will be in 4th, 5th or 6th grade next fall. Two sessions will be held, June 17-21, and June 24-28, 2013.

First-time campers learn about the principles of flight. Advanced campers with more experience will try out flight simulators and fly remote-control helicopters.

Cost of the camp is $285 per week. Full or partial scholarships, made possible by program sponsor Lockheed Martin, may be available for students who receive free or reduced-price lunch at their school.

Fernbank Science Center is owned and operated by the DeKalb County School District, but Aviation Camp is open to students from anywhere.

Deadline to apply is May 6.

START:CODE, a computer programming lab for kids and teens, will hold three, one-week sessions of summer camp for kids rising to middle-school or high-school (grades 6-12).

Camps will teach the programming languages Scratch, Python and Java. The camps will be held in Decatur.

Georgia State has opened registration for its Saturday School summer camp, to be held on the GSU campus from May 28 to June 1, 2013.

This day camp is one of the few academic camps that accepts very young children, as young as rising kindergarteners.

Rising K-1 students will learn about jobs that incorporate STEM. Rising second and third graders will become junior detectives, using STEM to solve mysteries. And the older kids, rising fourth through eighth graders, will use STEM concepts to explore the Chattahoochee River and its watershed.

Saturday School day camp and classes are open to students who have been gifted identified by their school, or who have qualifying scores on standardized tests such as the CogAT, ITBS, CRCT, etc. Students who don’t have the supporting documentation can enroll in Saturday school on a provisional basis for one year.

Registration is now open for the 2013 sessions of Bio@Tech, a three-week camp at Georgia Tech. The camp gives high-school students an intensive experience in biology topics. The 2013 sessions will cover ecology, genetics and microbes.

Bio@Tech is taught by Georgia Tech faculty and instructors, with help from an award-winning local high-school teacher. This non-residential camp is open to rising 11th and 12th graders, although highly exceptional rising 10th graders will be considered. The application process is competitive, and requires a portfolio including teacher recommendations. The deadline to apply is April 19, 2013.

The Atlanta History Center offers kids ages 6 to 11 a trip back in time with its 2013 summer camps.

This year, the day camp themes are:

• Gardening
• Survival skills used by Americans in the pre-Civil War era (weaving cloth, distilling water, identifying poisonous plants)
• The history of Atlanta
• U.S. presidents
• The Civil War
• “Weird History”
• The Cold War
• Animal Husbandry

The History Center also offers a single week of camp for children who are 4 or 5 years old.

Big kids who love history but are too old for these camps can apply for the junior counselor program.

The summer program at Ben Carson Academy is accepting applications through March 15.

Held at Morehouse School of Medicine, the academy exposes kids to science and math, and careers in healthcare. The Academy also has a socio-cultural aspect that’s designed to engage the Black student and encourage their pursuit of careers in which minorities are typically under-represented. However, the program is not limited to minority students.

One advantage of enrolling your child at Ben Carson Academy is that it may put them on a path to someday be selected for the Vivien Thomas Summer Program, in which high-school students can work as apprentices in biomedical research labs at Morehouse.

Register online. Spaces are filled on a first come, first served basis.

The Margaret Mitchell House has opened registration for its 2013 summer writing camp.

These week-long day camps are for kids ages 10-14. The campers work in small groups to ensure they get individual attention.

This year’s camp themes include mystery, journalism, writing essentials (e.g., grammar, style, mechanics), science fiction, and persuasive writing.

If you have a teen who’s too old to attend the camp but who loves to be immersed in writing, they may apply to the junior counselor program.

Georgia Tech will host a two-week, residential camp for middle-school students this summer, where kids will learn about aerospace engineering, robotics, bioscience and computing.

The WizKidz camp includes field trips to the Georgia Aquarium, Fernbank Museum, the Coca-Cola Space and Science Center in Columbus, and Tuskegee University.

Scholarships may be available.

Please note that while this camp is housed at the Georgia Tech campus, it is not operated by the university, but by an outside group.

So many gifted programs are geared towards science and technology, it’s always nice to find something in the performing arts realm for kids whose talents lie in that direction.

School of Rock is a day camp in Buckhead for kids ages 7 to 18 who sing or play guitar, bass, drums or keyboards. Students work in small groups through the week, leading up to a live performance with their ad hoc rock bands at a local venue.

Georgia Tech promises to go live tomorrow with registration for its P.E.A.K.S. summer programs for elementary, middle school and high-school students.

For elementary school kids (rising 4th-6th grades), there will be three, one-week sessions on LEGO Mindstorm robotics.

Middle-schoolers (rising 6th-9th grades) have more choices, including robotics and app development.

For high-schoolers (rising 10th-12th grades), there are sessions covering architecture, finance, app development, roller coaster physics and more.

All camps are Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Georgia Tech campus. Instructors are a mix of Georgia Tech professors, Tech students, and math and science teachers from the metro Atlanta area.