Category Archives: Virtual/Online

Outbreak! Summer High-School Program in Public Health, Register by June 30

Outbreak! is a free, online summer program offered by the Public Health Museum of Massachusetts to teach high-school students (Grades 10-12) about public health and related fields such as epidemiology, ethics, disease surveillance, nursing, and emergency preparedness. This year it will be held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 9AM-1PM, August 2-13. Register by June 30. For more information, email outbreak@publichealthmuseum.org.

PluggedIn: Inclusive Online Summer Program in Music Production & Technology

PluggedIn, based in Needham, is a unique, inclusive, nonprofit youth music program. This summer it’s offering a program in Digital Music Production & Technology for ages 6-19. PluggedIn is open to all students, regardless of ability to pay, ability to play, special needs, etc. Each week the program runs 10AM-Noon on Monday-Thursday and 10AM-2PM on Friday. Sign up for any or all of four weeks:

  • Intro to Digital Audio Production:  June 28-July 2
  • Intermediate Digital Audio Production:  July 6-9 
  • Creating Virtual Instruments in Pure Data:  July 12-16
  • Programming Audio Plugins:  July 19-23

Also, June 28-August 20, PluggedIn will offer Peace Tracks, a cross-cultural, digital music and video project for students in ages 14-18 in Massachusetts and Morocco to collaborate online in making a music video. It’s open to all skill levels. Register here for this and other programs, in-person and online.

Grades 7-12: Register Now for MIT’s Summer Virtual HSSP, July 10-Aug 14

Students entering Grades 7-12 (plus those who just graduated) are invited to register for MIT’s Summer HSSP, which will run virtually on six Saturdays, 1PM-5PM, July 10 – August 14. Students can take 3-week classes or 6-week classes, or both. Register by June 25 with your preferences for classes to be entered in the lottery for class assignment. The total cost is $40, regardless of the number of classes taken, and generous need-based financial aid is available. The fee is paid after the lottery results are announced, during the period in which remaining seats may be reserved on a first-come/first-served basis. For more information, email summer-hssp@mit.edu. HSSP is run by MIT students, this year Zooming from far and wide to offer 41 courses (plus more to be added later), including these STEM-related ones:

  • Fun with Algorithms!
  • Programming Robot Arms to Move Objects
  • Introduction to Programming with R
  • Intro to Programming in Python
  • Sharing Secrets: An Introduction to Cryptography
  • Intro to Graph Theory
  • Type Theory and Formal Verification
  • Functions and Graphs made Easy
  • Demographic Dynamics in Human Populations
  • Women’s Health
  • Environmental Pollution
  • Nuclear Fusion: Infinite, Clean Energy?
  • Human Identification through DNA Typing
  • Intro to Electronics
  • Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Black Holes!
  • Great and Small: Crazy Electrons
  • Introduction to Epidemiology
  • The Science of Happiness
  • How the Brain Learns: Cognitive Study Skills
  • Intro to Microbial Genomics
  • Why Things Freeze/Boil (Spoiler: Gravity, Mostly)
  • How Neurons Talk
  • The (Not So) Many Faces of Biotech
  • STEM Lecture Series

New England Aquarium: 1 Online Event June 21, and 3 In-Person Films

The New England Aquarium and the Lowell Institute will host Harvard Kennedy School Prof. Cornell William Brooks on June 21 at 6:30PM for a free online conversation on The Call of the Wild in Our Cities  — an historical and local calling for citizen activism to protect our environment. Register here.

The Aquarium is also showing three 22-minute films on a regular basis in its Simons Theatre: Great White Shark, Turtle Odyssey, and Ocean Odyssey. Read synopses and reserve tickets here.

UMass Lowell: Free, Virtual Cyber Security Summer Camp, Grades 9-12

UMass Lowell Center for Internet Security and Forensics Education and Research will offer the free, online GenCyber High School Student Virtual Summer Camp on Cybersecurity, July 12-23, 9AM-Noon daily to up to 80 students in Grades 9-12. No prior experience in programming or cybersecurity is required. Applications are considered on a rolling basis. For more information, email gencyberuml@gmail.com.

FSU Planetarium Online — AstroNights Live: A Star’s Life, June 16

The Christa McAuliffe Center at Framingham State University continues its free, virtual planetarium AstroNights events for families (ages 7+) with an online presentation, A Star’s Life, at a new date and time — June 16 at 7:30PM. In a 30-minute presentation (followed  by Q&A session), learn about the vast time scales and events of the lives of stars. View the presentation on Zoom (registration required) or the Christa McAuliffe YouTube channel, where you can view recordings of previous AstroNights events.