[Ohiogift] Davidson Institute eNews-Update: November 2021

Mon Nov 1 19:01:51 EDT 2021

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November 2021
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Davidson News
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Davidson Academy Reno Campus

2022-2023 Application Available
Davidson Academy's Reno Campus is the only free public school of its kind for profoundly gifted students. The Academy’s classes group students by ability rather than age, offering middle and high school level curriculum. Our unique approach to learning has attracted families from across the country and globe.

Our fully-accredited school is centered on interpersonal and instructional-based learning, creating an atmosphere that is vibrant with intellectual energy and dialogue. Throughout the years, the Academy has evolved to offer an increasing number of opportunities, while still providing a laser-sharp focus on the individual student.

Davidson Academy Reno Campus Virtual Open Houses
Hear more about our school through the eyes of our students, parents, and instructors (register here):   
   - Wednesday, November 3, 4:30 pm PT
   - Wednesday, December 8, 5:30 PM PT
   - Wednesday, January 12, 5pm PT
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|  Apply Today!
The 2022-2023 Davidson Academy Reno Campus application is now open! Visit the Eligibility and How to Apply pages to read about the application process. The deadline to apply is March 30, 2022.  |

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The Davidson Academy was ranked as the top public high school in America by Niche.com! See Niche's full list of rankings for the Davidson Academy.  |

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Davidson Academy Online Campus
The Davidson Academy's online campus is a dynamic, flexible option for profoundly gifted students living anywhere in the United States and Canada. Students at this accredited, robust online community are grouped by ability, not age. We leverage cutting-edge technology to create a new, highly personalized model of online education.

New for 2022-2023: The Davidson Academy Online Campus will be established as a separate independent school! See FAQs > 

Davidson Academy Online Virtual Open Houses
Join us to learn more about this exciting online learning option on the following dates (register here):   
   - Wednesday, November 17, 5pm PT (open to Davidson Young Scholars families only)
   - Wednesday, December 15, 4PM PT
   - Wednesday, January 5, 5pm PT
   - Tuesday, January 25, 4pm PT
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|  Davidson Academy Online Courses >
Online Single-Course Enrollments >

The 2022-2023 application will open late 2021 - stay tuned for updates. Contact online at davidsonacademy.unr.edu for more information.  |

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2022 Davidson Fellows Scholarship Application 
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|  The 2022 Davidson Fellows Scholarship application is now available online. Young people 18 and younger have the opportunity to earn a $50,000, $25,000 or $10,000 scholarship in recognition of a significant piece of work in the categories of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, music, literature and philosophy, or a project that represents outside the box thinking. New for '22, teams of 2! Two-person teams are now eligible to apply! The application deadline is February 9, 2022.   |

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Summer at Davidson
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|  Spend some of your summer with Davidson! We are thrilled to welcome students of all ages back to the University of Nevada, Reno in Summer 2022 for our variety of residential summer programming experiences. These programs focus on meeting the unique academic and social needs of gifted youth.  |

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What's New in Gifted Education
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Questions on Future of New York Gifted Program
With Mayor de Blasio's recent decision to phase out New York City's Gifted and Talented Program, local families and advocates are facing uncertainty. The likely incoming mayor, Eric Adams, however, has committed to keeping the gifted and talented program. Though details are currently unclear, he has called for an expansion of gifted classes into low-income neighborhoods.   
   - NAGC Statement on the decision >
   - Will Ending Gifted and Talented Programs Help Desegregate Schools? (Intelligencer)
   - Bill de Blasio is decimating gifted education in New York. Will Eric Adams save it? (Fordham Institute)
   - Education Gadfly Show #791: Is this the end of gifted education in New York City? (Education Gadfly)
   - Schools debate: Gifted and talented, or racist and elitist? (AP News)
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NAGC Conference
Registration is still open for the National Association for Gifted Children's Annual Convention in Denver November 11-14. The largest gathering devoted to gifted and talented education offers:  |

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   - Content-rich sessions in gifted education
   - Networking with gifted education leaders, parents, teachers, and renowned researchers
   - Live interviews and engaging conversations with leading experts
   - Exhibit Hall featuring state of the art products, publications, and resources
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In the News 
What research tells us about gifted education - "The research consensus, by contrast, argues for propelling high-achieving children ahead with accelerated lessons." (Hechinger Report)

The Gifted Gap: Best and the Brightest among Black & Low-Income Students Fall Behind Their Whiter, More Affluent Peers, Study Finds - "Research suggests that access to educational opportunity is unequally distributed among children at the top of the academic heap, and that even some of the brightest young students are at a high risk of being overlooked within their schools and districts." (The 74 Million)

How Do You Cultivate Genius in All Students? - "Cultivating a genius isn’t just about introducing someone to a set of facts or skills and believing in them." (MindShift)

NAGC Announces 2021 Javits-Frasier Scholarship Recipients (NAGC) .

How Parents Can Support Gifted Learners (New Jersey Family)

Another way to think about gifted education (New York Daily News) 

Building better G&T education (New York Daily News) 

Eliminating gifted programs deprives talented students of an education that matches their potential (The Globe and Mail)

Petersburg City Public Schools approves a gifted education program (Virginia: The Progress-Index)   |

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On the Web
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Blog Posts & Podcasts
 Ability Grouping for Gifted Students - "Ability grouping—defined as the practice of dividing classes, schools, or even districts into smaller groups according to students’ needs and readiness—is a contentious concept in education." (Davidson Academy Blog) 

ADHD by any other name? Try “Attention Divergent Hyperactive Giftedness" - Dr. Matthew Fugate shares data from his research about ADHD and provides parents and teachers insight into better understanding our kids. (Neurodiversity Podcast) 

An Educator’s Guide to Gifted Children (Davidson Gifted Blog) 

Back to school during a Pandemic: How to help your gifted child thrive - "As we all stumble through this difficult period of time and wait patiently until life regains some normalcy, recognize that your loving, attentive, consistent, and forgivably imperfect parenting provides the foundation that allows your child to thrive." (Gifted Challenges)

Burnout in Gifted Children - This article provides insights for parents and educators working with gifted children to understand what the signs of gifted burnout are and what you can do to help children overcome it. (Davidson Gifted Blog) 

Choosing the Right School for Your Gifted Child - "The most appropriate learning environment could include anything from a gifted program in the school the child is already attending, to a public school with a self-contained gifted program, to a school specifically for profoundly gifted students, and many more." (Davidson Academy Blog)   |

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|  Help for Childhood Anxiety and OCD with Dr. Eli Lebowitz - This discussion includes providing a solid understanding of help for childhood anxiety, how it impacts family systems, and why accommodating your child’s anxiety may be more harmful than helpful. (TiLT Parenting Podcast) 

Navigating Homeschooling with Your Gifted Child - "Homeschooling takes a lot less time than brick-and-mortar schooling. In fact, many families in our community spend only 2-4 hours on academics a day (and some spend even less!)." (Davidson Gifted Blog) 

Rigorous courses are a good thing—and good for equity - "If we make changes that help a greater proportion of our disadvantaged students achieve at high levels—by, for example, creating better gifted education programs and frontloading rigorous learning early and often—we’ll diversify advanced programs like AP without lowering the very expectations that generate the benefits for the students who succeed in them." (Fordham Institute)

Suicide Among the Gifted and Twice-Exceptional (Part 1; Part 2)  - Is suicidal ideation more prevalent among the gifted/2e population? Do our beliefs about suicide square with statistics? Dr. Tracy Cross joins us to shed some light on a dark subject, and shares his Spiral Model of the Suicidal Mind. (Neurodiversity Podcast) 

Types of Problems Gifted Children Face - Gifted children have differently-wired brains that make their experience of adolescents unique compared to their neurotypical age-mates. While most individuals think of giftedness in terms of academics alone, giftedness also applies to a child’s social and emotional development. (Davidson Gifted Blog)

See more on the Davidson Gifted Blog >  |

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In the Spotlight
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Davidson Fellows - Leveraging Scientific Innovation to Help Fight Diseases & Disorders
The Fellows Scholarship awards $50,000, $25,000 and $10,000 scholarships to extraordinary young people, 18 and under, who have completed a significant piece of work. Application categories are Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Literature, Music, Philosophy and Outside the Box. 

The class of 2021 Fellows included many who developed research specifically related to combating diseases and disorders. These Fellows' projects are highlighted below.  |

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|  Meenakshi Ambati - “Identification of Fluoxetine as a Direct NLRP3 Inhibitor to Treat Atrophic Macular Degeneration”
Dry macular degeneration is a vision-threatening disease that affects 200 million people worldwide. There is no approved treatment for this condition, and more than 100 clinical trials have failed. By combining the power of big data analysis of numerous health insurance databases, Meenakshi discovered that people taking fluoxetine, an FDA-approved anti-depressant, had a substantially reduced risk of developing dry macular degeneration. She also found that fluoxetine protected against this disease in laboratory models, suggesting that it could become the first effective drug against this blinding scourge. Repurposing an approved drug for this disease would shave billions off the cost and years off the time compared to developing a brand-new drug.  |

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|  Bala Vinaithirthan - “Prediction of Phenotypic Cancer Drug Response with an Image-Based Dual Convolutional Neural Network”
Cancer is difficult to cure and develop drugs for because it varies heavily from patient to patient. Bala's project learns from known interactions between drugs (using molecular structures) and cancer cell lines (using gene expression profiles) to predict the effectiveness of new combinations of drugs and cancer samples. With this model, currently-approved drugs and drug candidates in the pipeline can be tested for estimated effectiveness on cancer cell lines from different tissues. The model only requires a gene expression profile and drug structure, thus can be used to predict patient responses to various cancer drugs.  |

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|  Stanley Liu - “A Microfluidic Device for Blood Plasma Separation and Fluorescence Detection of Biomarkers Using Acoustic Microstreaming”
For many developing countries, infectious diseases such as HIV are highly prevalent and lead to thousands of deaths every year. This is widely attributed to the inaccessibility of inexpensive and accurate diagnostic tests in areas with limited medical infrastructure and trained personnel. Stanley developed a handheld microfluidic diagnostic device for the detection of HIV, which could potentially provide fast and highly accurate detection of infectious diseases at less than $2 per device.  |

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|  Angelin Mathew - “Developing Off the Shelf Pancreases for Diabetic Patients: Bacterial Cellulose and Kombucha Waste Based Scaffolds with an Integrated Oxygen Generating System for Islet Cell Transplantation”
Angelin's research seeks to alleviate the burden of Type 1 Diabetes. Islet cell transplantation is a possible long-term solution for Type 1 Diabetic patients because it replaces the dysfunctioning or destroyed insulin releasing cells with healthy ones. Unfortunately, this procedure is still not widely available and has limited clinical success because the transplanted cells are usually starved of oxygen. Angelin designed a pancreas-like home for the cells by modifying the SCOBY, a Kombucha tea waste product. She also integrated a system that can deliver small amounts of oxygen to the cells in the Kombucha SCOBY home to help the insulin releasing cells to survive better.  |

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|  Adarsh Ambati - “A Contactless Vital Signs Monitor using PhotoPlethysmographic (PPG) Imaging Infrared Sensing Techniques & Computer Vision”
Adarsh developed a contactless, low-cost, prototype that detects the five vital signs — skin-temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen levels(Spo2). The contactless feature helps reduce potential exposure of healthcare providers (like the many that occurred during the COVID-19 outbreak), and the low-cost feature strengthens home healthcare systems— allowing for self-quarantining/isolation without overwhelming hospitals. Finally, the continuous-monitoring capability can help detect health abnormalities like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome that can be both fatal and unexpected.  |

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|  Patryk Dabek - “Exploiting Metabolic Reprogramming in Liver Cancer: Mitochondrial Membrane Potential Response to Selective ATP Hydrolysis Inhibition”
This study aims to improve patient care by overcoming the limitations of traditional treatments in dealing with the great variability of cancer as a disease. The premise of the therapy Patryk explored was to exploit a hallmark of cancer, metabolic reprogramming, as a therapeutic target. Cancer's metabolic changes allow for its destructive growth. By showing that selectively halting a key component of cancer metabolism, Patryk's project shows that cancer cells can be selectively targeted without harming normal cells, thus holding the promise of an effective therapy for cancer patients.  |

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|  Parisa Vaziri - “The Neuro-Protective Role of FOXO in a PINK1 Loss-of-Function Based Model of Neurodegeneration in Drosophila melanogaster”
With people living longer than they ever have before, this increased longevity has led to increased neurodegeneration. To see if the FOXO gene could prevent neurodegeneration, Parisa formed two groups of fruit flies as models, and found that one of the groups that was overexpressing FOXO had significantly healthier neurons, three times better motor function, and a 50% increased lifespan, all despite the fact that they were predisposed to neurodegeneration. Parisa concluded that FOXO protects the brain against the degenerative factor of aging, which introduces gene therapy as a possible solution to notoriously unsolvable diseases.  |

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| If you have information to include in a future newsletter, please contact us at administrator at davidsongifted.org.

Davidson Institute
 Nurturing Intellect. Unlocking Potential.
 Reno, Nevada
 DavidsonGifted.org
 administrator at davidsongifted.org

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