Algebra using Hands-On Equations

All the World's a Stage

Ancient Egypt

In the fertile valley of the Nile River, Egyptian civilization flourished amid Pharoahs, pyramids, and sacred cats! Learn about mummies, amulets, the Egyptian calendar, and more through the application of language arts, science, geography and art.

Ancient Greece

Alpha to Omega…from the Mighty Minoan civilization to the Perilous Peloponnesian Wars…the history of Ancient Greece is colorful and fascinating.  Try your hand at Greek mosaics, work with the Pythagorean theorem, delve into Greek Mythology, and begin to build a basic Greek vocabulary.  This course will whet your appetite for history.

Artful "Fabric"ations

Use fabric as a canvas to create a theme-based shirt, tent, apron, cloth chair, table runner, puppet, or other usable item. While so engaged, learn about the history of textiles, practical uses of various fabrics, how synthetics are made, where clothes are manufactured in the world today, how prices are determined, and more.

Art Media, Light and Color

Asian Culture: Cambodia

Cambodia, an Asian country with a rich history, is bordered by Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and the Gulf of Thailand. From the 10th to the 13th centuries, Cambodia was one of the most powerful empires in Southeast Asia. Learn about Cambodia's history, landforms, wildlife, climate, temples, language and more with instructor Mark Bowman who has traveled to this beautiful Southeast Asian country, the homeland of his wife, many times. Tasty authentic Cambodian dishes will be served on Friday.

Aviation Science

Backyard Biodiversity

Investigate the habitats of birds, squirrels, spiders, slugs, ants and other creatures found just outside your back door. Get eye to eye with the tiniest creatures as you watch them crawl across your computer screen using digital technology. Observe their exquisite markings, features and movements. When you return them to their natural environments, take a close-up look at the different kinds of plant life that abound nearby. Use your new knowledge of backyard biodiversity to create miniature backyard gardens complete with plants, worms, and soil to take home.

Battery Powered Machines

Biology: Micro to Macro

Bridges and Buildings: Portland's Changing Landscape

Ceramics

Were handmade ceramic pots first made and admired for function or beauty?  Discover the history and the timeless art of ceramics.  Try your hand at molding, drying, sanding, glazing, firing ceramics pieces using three different types of clay. Learn how and why the process works.  Create and decorate a variety of useful and decorative pieces this week for yourself and your family.

CIT (Counselor in Training)

Facilitator: Kristine Fosback

Be a CIT (Counselor In Training) in classes for younger students. We will conference with you before the Summer Program begins so you can tell us what age group you'd like to work with and in which class you'd like to share your expertise. In return, you may take a class of your choice at no charge for each CIT class you assist in. (Note: materials fees still apply.)

Civics: Making a Difference

Cleared for Take-Off

Put gravity to the test using airplanes, rockets, hot air balloons and more in this hands-on aviation class for future pilots and rocket scientists. "Lift" yourself into the world of flight by constructing and testing all kinds of flying machines in our 7-foot wind tunnel. "Thrust" yourself into the history of flight and look ahead to aircraft and systems on the horizon. This class will be anything but a "drag!"

Completely Chemistry

3D Computer Animation Station

What's Cooking?

Cool Chemistry

Deep Blue Sea: Oceanography

Design Technology: Marble Roll Construction

There are many ways to measure time, but have you ever created your own time machine? Collaborate with fellow paper engineers and develop time machines using newspaper, tape, marbles and a few other miscellaneous materials. Construct a small scale, intricate, 3-D marble roll maze so that marbles start and end a course at exact times. Application of physics, engineering, math and art.

Destruction Reconstruction

Digital Digests, Albums, Books (younger students)

Digital Digests, Albums and Blogs (older students)

What makes you unique and how can you safely express your uniqueness to family and friends?  Examine how photography and journaling have changed over the centuries from sepia photographs of long ago to the current age of Photobucket, blogs, and original iPhoto hardcover books. Along the way, create a book or album (older students may create a password protected blog with written parent permission) that highlights a special interest using photos and journalistic techniques. Internet safety and what NOT to share digitally is an integral part of instruction.  Other than covering safety concerns, Facebook and MySpace are not part of this curriculum.

Digital Movie Making

Entrepreneurship and Investing

"Excel"lent Presentations Up Close and Useful

Facing Forward Seminar

This seminar involves discussions and presentation of materials about making academic choices when multiple options present themselves, becoming self-advocates at school, fitting in socially without relinquishing a sense of self, generating community service opportunities, securing effective mentors and resources, reviewing high school and college test preparation materials, starting or refining a portfolio of accomplishments, and other topics of students' interest. Nutruitious morning snacks and comfy chairs provided daily!

Faux Radio

Produce your own radio show! We'll start with a look at what's on the radio these days and in the past. Then we'll collaborate on creating the content. Conduct interviews, write personal essays, create fake commercials, play your harmonica - the options are unlimited. The resulting project will be available both on CD and podcast.

Hmm. Now where did your dinner come from? Learn about corporate, organic, and home food sources. Examine food labels and analyze the nature of ingredients listed on the box. Then grow, prepare and taste a variety of foods.You'll take home your own herb garden along with other garden crafts and recipes. You'll find this week to be not only educational, but a truly "tasteful" experience!

From Cube to The Great
Dirhombicosidodecahedron
(a.k.a. Miller's Monster)

Game Theory

Greek Dancing, Food and Culture

Green Power

Independent Study

Facilitator: Kristine Fosback

Juggling, Jumping, Fitness and Fun I, II, III, and IV

Note: Each class is different, but still provides time for students to work on special skills such as juggling.

Juggling, jump rope tricks, heart rate monitors, reaction times, strength tests. Catapulting water balloons across a field and eating nutritional snacks. Personal fitness enhances mental alertness, academic performance, and enthusiasm for learning. These four classes, designed by physical education expert Jennifer Pierce-Griffin, focus on the physical and nutritional components of fitness while engaging students in a wide variety of activities that build individual and team skills.  Depending on the weather, these classes include a "cool" downtown Portland field trip for a refreshing run through a fountain and a freshly made healthy smoothie. Totally healthy and totally fun!

Kitchen Chefs

Kitchen Chemistry

Learn to use all kinds of simple kitchen machines like egg beaters, melon ballers, closed nut choppers and more tools in a special kind of science lab called a "kitchen." Then try your hand at experimenting with different kinds of edible matter. Melt and freeze foods, mix oil and water, make raisins sink and float, take some eggs for a spin. Using the scientific method, make predictions about how yummy or yucky your edible materials will taste at the end of the day or week and record the results with a smile or a frown.

Landscape Design and Construction

Lego Robotics

Literature and Composition

Living Worlds: Animalia

Magic: The Science of Illusions

"How did you do that?" You'll hear this question again and again when the magician in you takes center stage. Magic is really the science of illusions you can learn! Discover the techniques of misdirection, hand position, sleights, and more. Gain confidence and polish your showmanship while your audiences sit on the edge of their seats. And now, introducing the star of the show... YOU!

Man Eats Shark Journalism

This is the creative writing they don't let you do in school. Fractured fairy tales, fantastic adventures and the strangest newspaper stories you've ever seen in print. Students should come ready to ready to write and illustrate their original material. (Warning: standard grammar and spelling required. Use of crash helmets optional.)

Math Art: Mazes, Marbles, Pyramids and Picasso

Math Inside the Box

Mechanical Engineers

My "Knock Your Socks Off" Urban Gardens!

Mythbusters

Ordinary to Extraordinary: Superheroes

Orienteering

Patchwork Projects

Create a simple or complex geometric design on paper and then translate your design into a beautiful lap quilt or pillow that you'll sew mostly by hand and a bit by machine. Choose from a multitude of colorful fabrics for your one of a kind creation that will be just perfect for your bedroom or chair, or as a gift for someone else. Quilt tying wraps up this practical geometry class that you'll find "sew" mathematically useful!

Perfect Problem Solving the Singapore Math Way

Physical fitness enhances mental alertness, academic performance, and enthusiasm for learning.  This class, designed by physical education expert Jennifer Pierce-Griffin, focuses on the physical and nutritional components of fitness while engaging you in a wide variety of activities to build individual and team skills.  A fun and interactive class! Note: This class also includes juggling, jump roping, testing reaction times, healthy snacks, and more!

Perspective Drawing

Photo Fixing

Turn every photograph into a work of art or a conversation starter. Place yourself in locations you've never been before like Mars or Presidential meetings at the White House. In fact, imagine showing up in family photos decades before you were born! This week, you'll not only take and make amazing pictures of the world around you, you'll gain the powerful skill of restoring old photos. Bring in your old photos and learn how to correct or change them using color correction, fun and funny filters, and cool special effects. Take home a CD of everyone's incredible projects.

The Play's the Thing

Solar powered cars, calculating energy consumption of electrical devices, making and dissecting batteries, and experiments with the Van de Graff generator. There aren't many topics more newsworthy than our need for and use of all kinds of energy and power. Learn about clean and not so clean energy solutions in discussions about conservation and take an objective look at both the history and future of energy usage around the world. Combined with activities from Battery Powered Machines, this class will be one intense, electrifying experience. May the Electrical Force Be With You!

Pull Toy Design and Construction

Creation, innovation, and enhancement! Wikipeda says that a prototype "is built to test the function and feel of a new design before starting mass production of a product." After studying toy systems that allow movement from a resting position to one or more action positions, you'll design and create your own unique pull toy prototype.Then produce as many as you like. You can even test market your creation in the Education Soaring store ... no strings attached!

Puppets and People on Stage

On center stage, a theatrical production extraordinaire featuring you and original and already made puppet creations. Make and manipulate hand, rod, and shadow puppets and marionettes.  Learn to use voice and motion to bring puppets to life, and then practice techniques all summer long using your own portable puppet stage.

Real Art

Reptile Safari

Rip Roaring Reptiles

Rip Roaring Robots

Sculpture Art

Imagine, plan, create ... mold, paint, innovate. Use clay, paper, wood, recyclables, metal and even food to sculpt 3-dimensional works of art and useful objects of both small and large proportions. Willingness to evaluate and sometimes take apart and recreate will be helpful!

Skyscraper Math

Space Adventure
(Currently unscheduled; call for questions)

Splash! Hydrology

It's surprising how many vegetables can thrive in a square foot space. Using Mel Bartholomew's techniques of square foot gardening, create a garden that is both productive and beautiful. Rock, wood, a piece of handmade garden art or reworked furniture will enhance the beauty of your partly edible landscaped space. Although you'll just be getting started, here's an example of how your garden might continue to "grow." View a sample garden here.

This class includes a materials fee of $25 for garden box materials, soils, and plants. More than one 1'x1' box can be constructed.

Stop Motion Animation

This is class beyond flip books.  Use video cameras and computers to combine motion with art. By the end of this class you will have created an original animated adventure on DVD. Wallace and Grommit creators never had it so good!

Strategy Games, Puzzles, and other Mind Challenges

Survivor USA
Survivor Future

Third Rock from the Sun: Geology and Hydrology

Welcome to the third rock from the sun.  Explore the diversity of rock formations around the world.  Not all mountains are made from volcanoes.  Learn the magical ways nature sculpts our Earth, changing the landscape through wind, water, air, and even plants. What moves mountains, chisels rocks, and makes beaches disappear? Water power! Learn where water comes from and how we harness it. Test water quality, conduct experiments and be amazed.

Toy Testers, Incorporated

What is a toy? Does every child have toys? Why are toys so much fun to play with? Which toys are the most fun? How do different toys work? Do great toys always cost a lot of money? Can you make toys? Director Kristine Fosback has purchased some new toys and materials that need scientific testing by expert toy testers and inventors. That tester and inventor could be you!

Water Power! Water Fun!

Website Design

Showcase your expertise with family and friends on a topic of your choice. Starting from scratch, design a one or multiple page website using text, images, color and other design elements. With your parent's written permission, we'll host your secure, password-protected website for free on our web server so it will be accessible for you to work on and enjoy all year long. New and continuing students may register for any weeks.

What's Cooking?

Where In the World Am I?

Home, neighborhood, city, state, country, continent, planet, universe. Where are you, anyway? Explore the concepts of being in more than one place at the same time, the perspectives of looking down from an airplane or up through a telescope, the notion that "big" is actually "minute" when compared to things gigantic. Creation, movement, exploration, and a variety of engaging activities will give you a greater understanding of where you fit into your world and how important you are.

Woodshop Projects: Paint, Personalize and Present!

Woodshop: Super Fun Stuff

Put on your tool belt, place your carpenter's pencil and measuring tools in your apron pocket and don your safety goggles! Plan, measure, refine and build. Use wood, hammer, nails, glue and other carpentry tools to build your math skills while building your own furniture and other super stuff! For pictures of some of the projects we'll be working on, check out this website: http://www.thingstobuild.com/kidsplans.html.

Woodshop: Tables, Chairs and Stools

Put on your tool belt, place your carpenter's pencil and measuring tools in your apron pocket and don your safety goggles! Plan, measure, refine and build. Use wood, hammer, nails, glue and other carpentry tools to build your math skills while building your own furniture and other super stuff! For pictures of some of the projects we'll be working on, check out this website: http://www.thingstobuild.com/kidsplans.html.

Woodshop Projects To Go