Registration is open now for Empow Studios’ spring classes and summer camps for ages 7-15. Kids can explore STEM, find their passion, and accelerate learning in Digital Art & Design, Minecraft, Coding, Robotics, and Video Game Design — from beginner to advanced projects. Classes and camps are at seven locations in the Boston area, including 180 Needham Street in Newton Upper Falls and 80 Crescent Street in Newton Centre — as well as online.
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Earthwatch Girls in Science Fellowships, Aug. 6-12 — Apply by Mar. 24
Earthwatch is offering fully funded Girls in Science Fellowships to Massachusetts students who are currently in Grades 10-11 (ages 15-18) and identify as female or nonbinary. August 6-12, the Fellows will study the ecology and behavior of dolphins on the expedition Marine Mammal Bioacoustics and Conservation at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition, in partnership with Woods Hole Sea Grant. Food and accommodations will be provided. Register here for an online information session on Tuesday, February 28 at 6PM. Apply by March 24. For more information, email gis@earthwatch.org.
LLRISE: MIT Lincoln Laboratory Summer Radar Program for Rising High-School Seniors, Apply by Mar. 10
MIT Lincoln Laboratory offers the Lincoln Laboratory Radar Introduction for Student Engineers (LLRISE), a two-week, residential, summer workshop for 18 rising high-school seniors to build small radar systems. It’s free and will be held July 9-22 on the MIT Campus with activities also at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington. Students from a wide range of underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. Apply online by 10PM on March 10, including uploading of essays, transcripts, standardized test scores, and math and science teacher recommendations. For more information, contact LLRISE@LL.mit.edu.
LLCipher: MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Summer Workshop in Theoretical Cryptography for Grades 9-12, Aug. 1-5
MIT Lincoln Laboratory offers LLCipher, a free, one-week workshop in theoretical cryptography, July 31-August 4, for high-school students in Grades 9-12 interested in math and cyber security. It will be held in-person at MIT Beaverworks (300 Technology Square, Cambridge). Students from underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. Applications (including transcripts and math teacher recommendation) are due April 28 by 10PM. For more information, email STEM@ll.mit.edu, mentioning LLCipher.
MassBay’s iCREAT: Free Summer STEM Course for Underserved in Grades 10-12
MassBay Community College will offer iCREAT — a free, two-week, non-residential, 3-credit course in coding, robotics, engineering, and technology — for selected students currently in Grades 10-12 who are first in their family to go to college and/or are receiving support for food, housing or health care. It will run July 10-23, 9AM-3PM Mondays-Thursdays, on the MassBay campus (40 Oakland Street, Wellesley Hills). Apply online.
Applications now open for 2023-24 Lemelson-MIT high-school InvenTeams
The Lemelson-MIT Program within MIT’s School of Engineering administers the InvenTeams program, in which teams of high-school students, educators, and mentors receive grants of up to $7500 to invent working technological solutions to real-world problems. Each InvenTeam chooses its own problem to solve. Up to eight schools will be awarded grants. Newton has a successful history with InvenTeams.
For the 2023-24 school year, the grant-application process for teachers is now open until April 27. Invitations will be sent to selected applicants on May 3 for them to submit final applications by September 5, and winners will be announced on September 27. There will be webinars to explain the process on March 7 & 21 and April 4 & 18.
Newton MATHCOUNTS teams place 5th and 7th at Chapter Competition
Eighteen schools and approximately 140 students participated in the MATHCOUNTS Massachusetts MetroNorth Chapter competition that took place at Andrews Middle School in Medford on Saturday, February 4.
Newton’s Charles E. Brown Middle School MATHCOUNTS team — team Pi-Thon, consisting of students Zach Gao, Jason Huang, Stephen Wang, and April Mei — placed fifth, allowing the team to advance to the State Competition to be held at UMass-Lowell on March 4. Schools placing ahead of Brown were Clarke and Diamond in Lexington, Buckingham Browne & Nichols, and McCall in Winchester.
Newton’s Oak Hill Middle School placed seventh. Besides these teams, Newton students from F. A. Day Middle School and Newton Country Day School also participated individually in the competition.
MATHCOUNTS is a national mathematics competition that has served millions of middle school students since 1984. It is divided into a series of contests at the school, chapter, state, and national level. Last year 55,500 students participated in the competition.
Last November at Newton South HS, the Brown team also won the team championship and some individual championships in M Snake –Newton’s first math competition for city-wide middle school students. M Snake is a local math competition for all Newton middle school students, founded by Newton South HS junior Elena Boskakova and run by NSHS students.
Grades 7-12: Register by Feb. 19, for MIT’s Spring HSSP on Saturdays, Feb. 25 – Apr. 8
MIT’s Spring HSSP — a six-week academic program for Grades 7-12 — will be back in-person at MIT on Saturdays, February 25 to April 8 (except March 18), 1PM-4PM. Online registrations are open now, and all applications completed by February 19 will be considered equally in the course-assignment lottery (registrations after that will be taken first-come/first-served as space is available). The cost is $50 per student (regardless of the number of courses taken) and generous, need-based financial aid is available. Email spring-hssp@mit.edu for more information. The Spring HSSP course catalog covers many academic and non-academic topics, including these STEM offerings:
- Astrobiology
- Cancer Immunology
- Chemistry of the Environment
- Histochemistry and special stains in pathology and Etsy
- Introduction to Organic Chemistry
- Learn Programming Like It’s 1986
- Modeling Mechanics, Chemistry, and Circuits via Differential Equations and JavaScript
- Numerical Methods
- So You Want to be a Financier
- STEM Lecture Series
- The Neuroscience of Memory and Intelligence
- Topics in Global Health
Newton High Schools compete in Harvard Invitational Science Olympiad
Among the 41 high-school teams competing this year’s Harvard Invitational (Division C) Science Olympiad, Newton South HS placed 8th and Newton North HS placed 16th.
In the results for specific events, Newton South placed 2nd in “Fermi Questions” and 4th in “It’s About Time,” and Newton North HS placed 3rd in both “Chemistry Lab” and “Environmental Chemistry.”
Tufts University STEM programs school breaks and summer, Grades 1-6 & 7-9
Tufts University offers programs, both during school-year breaks and in the summer, for Grades 1-6 and Grades 7-9. For more information, email precollege@tufts.edu or call 617-627-2926. Registration opens February 15 for these STEM-related programs:
- Entering Grades 1-6 next fall: Design & Engineering Summer Workshops.
- Robotics & Engineering Workshop, June 26-30
- Wizarding Robotics and Engineering, July 10-14
- Robotics and Engineering Designs for Carnivals, July 17-21
- Entering Grades 7-9 next fall: Junior Engineering Investigations. July 24-28.
- Current Grades 7-8: Adventures in Veterinary Medicine (at Tufts Grafton, MA campus). April 17-21 or June 26-30.