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PacificQuest is an exciting opportunity for gifted students to explore college-level courses and receive one hour of college credit for their work. It is a one-week residential summer experience where thirty students from grades 7, 8, or 9, will live on-campus while enrolled in the program.

The deadline to submit all materials to be considered for participation this year has been extended to Monday, May 17, 2010 at 12 noon, PST.

Notification of acceptance will be mailed out on May 28, 2010.

July 25-July 30, 2010

Program Materials & Important Documents

Core Class

Telling Tales: History through stories, images and objects
Curious about how we study the past in the present? Is a picture really worth a thousand words? In this session we will abandon written documents to explore history through less traditional sources—oral tales, photographs and artistic images, and everyday objects—and use them to tell our own stories.

Elective Classes

Pushing Boundaries: A Contemporary Drawing Workshop
What does sound look like? Can you draw without using your hands? Deconstructing still-life drawings into a cubist collage? In this hands-on course you will explore these and a variety of other approaches to the process of drawing. Creativity and innovation are emphasized through non-traditional concepts and techniques. Materials include graphite, ink brush, charcoal and pastel. In the end, you will document your experience by creating a photo-copied artist's book of details from your drawings.

Chemistry: Befriending the Periodic Table
The periodic table contains more than 100 known elements. Intimidating? At PacificQuest chemistry sessions, we'll learn how to make the periodic table our useful companion who plays many roles as a realtor (knowing the placement of each electron in its house called “atomic orbital”), a psychiatrist (knowing the reactivity/stability of different atoms), a match maker (knowing which atoms are reactively compatible with which atoms) and even as an onion specialist (knowing the number of layers/ shells that make up an atom). Such a friend can help us understand why magnesium gets heavier when burned, or why lithium reacts with water more vigorously than sodium even though they are in the same family, and can help us predict some of the reactions that atoms undergo.