Grades 8-12: Northeastern Splash!, In-Person, Mar. 18

Events

Each spring, NEPTUN (a Northeastern University student group) hosts Splash!, a free program for students in Grades 8-12 to take fun and informative mini-classes led by Northeastern undergraduate students. This year, Splash! will again be held in-person at Ryder Hall on the Northeastern campus, on March 18, 8:30AM-6:40PM. The $0 cost includes free pizza and a T-shirt. Registration is now open and is first-come/first-served and requires setting up a free student account. For more information, see the FAQs or contact nu.neptun@gmail.com. You can also access online recordings of Digital Splash! courses from 2020. Among the 26 in-person Splash! courses this year are these STEM offerings:

  • Need a Hand?
  • The Spaghetti Challenge
  • Electronics and Soldering Workshop
  • Egg Drop Challenge
  • Origami for fun and profit, part 2
  • Thinking Outside the Cardboard Box: Prototyping with Cardboard!
  • Medical Devices, Medicine, 3D Printed Organs: Let’s talk Bioengineering!
  • The Key to Unlocking Data: An Intro to Database Management
  • The Lore of Languages: How Coding Came to Be
  • The Entire Internet in an Hour!
  • AI Q&A with an introduction
  • The Fermi Paradox: Where is Everyone?
  • Miraculous 3-Pound Jell-O
  • Speculative Evolution
  • Funky Science: DIY Lava Lamps
  • Color me Intrigued: Playing with ROY G BIV
  • We all scream for ChemE Ice Cream
  • Real Life Sci-Fi: Gene Editing

Newton Schools Foundation seeks donations for Calculus Project

Great ideas

The Calculus Project works in all of Newton’s middle and high schools to have more Hispanic, African American, and low-income students successfully complete calculus in high school, as a path to success in college. The program provides intensive, small-group summer classes, enrichment activities, and year-round mentoring and tutoring.  The TCP summer program includes instruction in Computer Science, field trips to STEM-related companies, and college campus visits for rising 11th graders with a focus on STEM majors and careers.

The program currently includes over 200 students in Grades 8-12 — 95% of whom are in honors or accelerated math. The Newton Schools Foundation seeks donations to expand the program to address a growing waitlist.

While the NPS operating budget funds part of the program, tax-deductible donations via the NSF are needed for the summer program, tutoring, enrichment activities, and supplies. This year’s campaign is $3,000 short of its $10,000 goal. Donate here.

Harvard Medical School: Summer MEDscience Programs, Apply by Mar. 25

Summer

Harvard Medical School’s MEDscience summer program for Grades 9-12 offers three one-week programs and one two-week program, following four different curricula:

  • MEDscience@HMS (clinical): hands-on, active learning in realistic, dynamic, simulated medical emergencies, offered each week, June 12 through August 18.
  • MEDscienceLAB (research based): hands-on lab and clinical experience in research and medical simulation, offered each of the weeks beginning June 10, 17, and August 7.
  • MEDscienceLab Forensics (research based): research underlying investigations of simulated crime scenes, offered each of the weeks beginning June 12, 26, July 24, and August 14.
  • MEDscience Moonshot (clinical): deep immersion into biomedical engineering, computer science and medicine at Harvard Medical School’s medical simulation labs and research lab, with design thinking through IDEO Cambridge, two weeks July 24-August 4.

All programs are in-person, non-residential, on the medical-school campus. Scholarships are available for Boston-area residents, awarded based on student essays and teacher assessments. Apply by March 25. For more information, email hmsmedscience@hms.harvard.edu or call 617-432-7047.

Grades 5-12: Register for Clark University’s Spring Splash, Apr. 2

Events

Clark University’s Spring Splash — a one-day program offering classes for students in Grades 5-12 — will be held April 2, 10AM-5PM on the Clark campus (950 Main St., Worcester).  Students should register as soon as possible because classes fill up.  The day is free, with lunch included.  For more information, email clarkuesp@gmail.com.  See the course catalog for STEM classes such as:

  • Astronomy
  • The Science of Sleep and Dreams

Girls Who Code: Summer Programs, Grades 9-12, apply by Mar. 24

Summer

Girls Who Code invites high school students who want to build computer-science skills, community, and a professional network to apply for Girls Who Code’s free Summer Programs by March 24. They will find friends and opportunities with learning tracks like game design in the live Summer Immersion Program or data science in the Self-Paced Program. The programs are open to those with no experience as well as those who have participated in past summers. Girls Who Code encourages all girls and non-binary students in Grades 9-12 to apply.

IQ Learning: Summer STEM Camp in Brookline, Grades 4-7

Summer

IQ Learning will again offer its summer camp, STEM Mysteries: Breaking the Code, August 21-25, at United Parish in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner, for students entering Grades 4-7. Only 20 spots are available. IQ Learning and its summer STEM camp were started last year by two certified, experienced, Harvard-trained teachers and math specialists, Cristina and Shephali, who met while working together in the Watertown Public Schools.

The aim of their STEM camp is to have kids engage in long-term STEM projects inspired by exciting themes and enable students to make connections to STEM concepts that they experience on interactive field-trips. This year’s STEM program will explore optical illusions, time travel, and breaking codes with the end goal of creating the camp’s own escape room.  Sign up here. For more information, email iqlearning314@gmail.com.

Discovery Museum: Play testing with toys designed by MIT class, Mar. 12

Events

On March 12, 10AM-4PM, the Discovery Museums (177 Main Street, Acton)  will invite the public to play with and test new toy designs created by MIT’s Toy Product Design class. Students from the class will be there with interactive posters to present their ideas and to  gather feedback from the public about their designs and which should move forward to production. Have some fun being part of the engineering design process!

Grades 7-8: Register Now for MIT SPARK, Mar. 18-19

Events

Run by MIT undergraduate and graduate students, SPARK offers students in Grades 7 and 8 a variety of short, interesting classes on the MIT campus over one weekend, March 18-19 (10AM-5PM on Saturday, 9AM-5PM on Sunday). The registration lottery is open now through 5PM on March 4, and until that deadline all course preferences will be treated equally in the lottery. After that, any remaining seats will be open first-come/first-served. Students may choose from over 70 courses and must register on their own. To fill your schedule, rank your top 3 classes and star at least 10 classes per time block. A $50 fee covers two days of classes and lunch and lots of walk-in activities. Generous financial aid is available. For more information not covered here, email spark@mit.edu. Here are STEM courses offered:

Computer Science

  • Can a computer solve it? P vs NP
  • Intro to JavaScript & Web Development
  • A brief history of computer science

Engineering

  • Build Your Own Solar Powered Car
  • How to Run an Airline
  • Crystals and Crystallography
  • CAD 101
  • Create your own board game
  • How to build a space mission

Mathematics

  • Fun with math: puzzles, games and a bit of history
  • Can you draw a house without lifting your pen? What about a computer network?
  • The Magic of Higher Powers
  • Cut & Reassemble: From a cat to a bird
  • Game Theory and Chomping Monsters
  • Pretty Patterns in Pascal’s Triangle

Science

  • Take Flight!
  • Let’s Talk about the Weather
  • Incarcerated Rights to Healthcare
  • Light: The coolest thing in the world
  • Climate Change and the Future of Human Health
  • Microbiology: Microbe Biology
  • What’s in a Nuclear Reactor?
  • Make Your Own Metamaterial
  • Minerals Lab: Earth’s Materials
  • Underwater Earthquake Science: An Intro to Performing Research on Ships as a Marine Geophysicist
  • Herbal Medicine: Not Just Essential Oils!