Gifted Atlanta

Georgia Gwinnett College, located in Lawrenceville, is now registering students for two summer programs:

Mathematics in Action (MiA) is open to rising 6th through 8th graders. In each one-week session, students will learn how math relates to music, epidemiology, and other disciplines. Students also will play math-related games.

Tech Camp is open to students entering 6th through 11th grades, with separate one-week sessions for high school students, middle-school girls, and middle-school boys. Students will work with digital tools including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Adobe Illustrator.

Both camps are taught by GGC faculty and staff, with assistance from GGC students.

High-school students are invited to dive into the world of mass communication at the Media and Leadership Academy at the University of Georgia, June 3-8, 2018.

Students in the academy will choose one of three tracks: journalism, entertainment, or advertising and public relations. They’ll learn about their specific track in a classroom setting during the first half of the week, then spend the second half of the week doing team projects to develop their skills.

The academy is a program of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, which is considered one of the nation’s best journalism schools. (Full disclosure: I am an alumna. But it’s still true.)

Students will live in UGA residence halls and will have evening activities organized by the academy staff.

The Media and Leadership Academy is open to rising 10th, 11th and 12th graders, as well as to incoming UGA freshmen who plan to pursue a major in the Grady College.

The program cost is $550 per student; scholarships are available.

The STEM Exploring and Engineering Academy is now registering students for its 2018 summer program, being held June 3-8 at Georgia Tech.

Students in the STEM Academy take behind-the-scenes tours of local companies to learn about real-world STEM careers and complete hands-on activities, with an emphasis on the engineering component of STEM. In the past, the program has visited Porsche, Georgia Power, the Georgia Aquarium, Six Flags Over Georgia, Delta Tech-Ops, the Weather Channel, and more.

Students live in dorms on the Georgia Tech campus for the duration of the program. The program is open to current high-school students, as well as to rising 9th graders who are able to live independently in the dorm environment.

Cost per student is $1,100.

The STEM Academy, now in its 16th season, is organized by the Atlanta area council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Girls Who Code is now accepting applications to its 7-week summer immersion program in Atlanta for girls who are currently in 10th or 11th grade (rising juniors and seniors as of summer 2018).

The summer immersion program is a day camp that meets from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. Students will learn coding skills, meet engineers, and work on a project to address a real-world problem that interests them. This is a beginner-level coding program; no prior computer programming experience is needed.

The camp is free, and financial aid may be available for girls who need help paying for transportation to the camp location, or who ordinarily rely on a summer job to make ends meet. Girls Who Code encourages everyone to apply for this assistance stipend.

From their web site, it looks like Atlanta will host two sections of this program, one from June 4 to July 20, and the other from June 11 to July 27.

The early decision application deadline is February 16. The final deadline is March 16.

[Shout out to my sister-in-law who reminded me about this program and who said, based on her experience, it’s as much about teamwork and leadership as it is about computing.]

Gifted and high-achieving students are invited to attend Summer Exploration Program (SEP), to be held June 26-29, 2017, at Chattahoochee Elementary School in Duluth.

The program is open to students who are currently in grades 1 through 8. Students are grouped by grade levels, with multiple class topics to choose from in each session. A representative of the Gwinnett Alliance for Gifted Education (GAGE), which is operating the program, said students can choose a class that is listed for their current grade level, or their rising grade. For example, a student who is just finishing third grade may choose a class listed for grades 2-3 or for grades 4-5.

Students have the option of attending a morning session, afternoon session, or both. Cost for the four-day program is $175 per session; however, GAGE members receive a discounted rate of $150 per session.

Registration closes June 16, 2017.

The Appalachian Institute for Creative Learning invites rising middle- and high-school students to its residential summer camps at Mars Hill University, near Asheville, N.C.

AICL celebrates imagination and creativity. My kids have attended this camp, and I taught there one summer. The class content is highly engaging for creative kids, but just as important is AICL’s nurturing, accepting environment for kids who think differently, have unusual interests, and don’t like to be forced into a mold of conformity.

Spaces are available in two of AICL’s programs:

• Week 0, for rising 9th through 12th graders. This is an intense academic program — still fun, but more demanding than AICL’s traditional enrichment camps.
• Week T -1, for rising 6th through 8th graders, promises hands-on labs, Socratic discussions, and intensive art classes.

In addition to class time during the day, both camps offer social and recreational time in the afternoons and evenings.

High-school students interested in complex math are invited to apply for the QuanTM summer program at Emory University.

This four-week, residential program, operated by Emory’s Institute for Quantitative Theory and Methods, delves into college-level topics such as combinatorics, number theory, probability, statistics, game theory and more. Students spend the first three weeks learning through a combination of lectures and hands-on activities. In the fourth week, they complete a research project in an area of interest to them.

Students who apply before Feb. 28 will receive a $300 discount.

(Note: Although this program is called “QuanTM Math Circle,” it is not affiliated with the Math Circle program offered by Emory University’s Department of Math and Computer Science during the school year.)

Duke TIP has opened registration for its 2017 Field Studies summer program for high-school students. In this two-week residential program, students take college-level academic courses and get hands-on experience in a field that interests them, helping them evaluate whether a major or career they’re leaning toward is a good fit.

The program is held on the campuses of Duke University and New College of Florida, as well as at destination sites including the Las Cruces Biological Station in Costa Rica, Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, and the PARI observatory in North Carolina.

To attend, you must submit an application by Feb. 27, 2017. You do not have to be registered with the Duke TIP Talent Search to apply.

Financial aid is available, and the Duke TIP web site boasts that in 2016, TIP was able to provide aid for every summer programs student who requested it.