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Student-to-Student Conference 2012 - CAG Santa Lucia Region California Association for the Gifted, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito Counties, Region 5

Fourth Annual Student-to-Student Conference
Saturday May 12, 2012  ~  1:00–5:00 pm
Cowell Colleges, UC Santa Cruz

Students present workshops on their favorite subjects; other students attend these workshops! Open to all students grades 3–12 in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Monterey, San Benito and San Mateo Counties. You do not need to be a GATE-identified student in order to attend the conference, or to present a workshop. Everyone is welcome to this FREE conference!

Conference flyers and more information available soon!

Check out our Facebook Page —and help spread the word about the conference by clicking “Like”!

Student presenting at the 2010 Student-to-Student Conference

Students grades 3–12 (and their parents/guardians) are invited to attend a conference by and for students. The conference is open to ALL students from throughout the region: Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Monterey and San Benito Counties. You do not need to be a GATE-identified student in order to attend the conference, or to present a workshop. Everyone is welcome!

Two Ways to Participate—plus a campus tour:

Student presenting at the 2010 Student-to-Student Conference

At the conference, students will offer a wide variety of 25-minute workshops and presentations to other students. Much like an adult professional conference, students will receive a program that lists the various presentations and workshops, and can choose to attend up to six sessions.

Students checking out the Lego Robot exhibit, at the 2010 Student-to-Student Conference
UC Santa Cruz campus overlooks the Monterey Bay

Location:

This TOTALLY FREE event will be held at Cowell College on the breathtakingly beautiful campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz. Comprising 2,000 acres of the former Cowell Ranch, the UCSC campus includes rolling meadows and forests of redwoods, oak and madrone, with sweeping views of the Monterey Bay and Pacific Ocean.

One of many foot bridges that pass through redwood forest, on the UC Santa Cruz campus

Student workshops will be held in the classrooms of Cowell and Stevenson Colleges. Free parking is available, and conference attendees can grab lunch (before the conference) or dinner (after the conference) at the University Dining Hall right at Cowell-Stevenson Colleges, or several other places just a few minutes walk from Cowell-Stevenson. (Several campus maps are available online.)

Sorry, the campus tour is full, but you may sign up and be placed on the waiting list!
Students and their families are invited to take a FREE tour of the campus before the conference. The walking tour, hosted by UCSC students and staff, will start and end at Cowell College, and will involve walking approximately 1½ miles—including up and down some hills—during a 90-minute tour. The tour will depart from Cowell College at 10:30 am, returning to Cowell around 12:00 noon, leaving time for lunch before the conference begins at 1:00 pm. With apologies to our younger students, UCSC staff tell us the tour is open only to students grades 6–12, and their families. Please make sure to indicate your interest in taking the tour when you register for the conference, so that UCSC staff can plan accordingly. Hurry, limited space available!

The conference program will begin at 1:00 pm sharp! Please plan on arriving by 12:30 (10:00 if you want to take the tour)to park and sign in, so that we can begin on time.

Students test out their catapult, that they built in a workshop at the 2010 Student-to-Student Conference

More About Presenting a Workshop:

Students wishing to offer a workshop, performance or other presentation are asked to submit their proposal to us no later than Friday May 8. The registration form has a place for your presentation’s title and a brief description (500 characters max = around 100 words). You can also let us know that you want to present, but will send us your presentation information later. If you do this, make sure we get your workshop info by May 15, or you may not be able to present. And if we get more presentation proposals than we have room for in the schedule, it may be “first come-first served,” so don’t wait too long!

NOTE: A parent, guardian, teacher or other adult (21 years or older) must be in the room while you are presenting!

Teachers and Parents: Encourage your students/children to present a workshop!
Here are a few resources to help you do so:

Helpful Tips for Planning and Presenting a Great Workshop!

Use these “Student Presenter Nomination Award Certificates” to help encourage a student present a workshop—along with the resources linked to above.

Student Presenter Nomination Award Certificates:

Student Nomination Award Certificate version 1
Student Nomination Award Certificate version 1

A Slideshow to Show Students, About the Conference:

This slideshow (737 KB .ppt MS PowerPoint icon) offers a brief overview of the conference and how to plan a presentation.

(This version of the slideshow is missing several slides, that have photos of students presenting workshops at the 2010 conference. Until we get permission to post these images online, we can’t post them. Email Ted (edward_altenberg [at] pvusd [dot] net) and he can email you the picture slides.)

Workshops can be about almost anything, topics you’ve learned about inside or outside of school, including but not limited to any of these topic ideas:

Actual Workshops Presented in Past Years:

  • How to Write an Exciting Story
  • Dance with Masti/Fun
  • How Will Man Get To Mars?
  • Aesthetics Are My Life
  • The History of Godzilla and Other Movie Monsters
  • Cool Math Websites for Kids
  • Environment and Fun: Yes, They Can Go Together!
  • An Edible Guide to the History of Food
  • How I Started My Chemistry Card Company as a Middle Schooler
  • The Owls of California
  • How to Build a Skateboard
  • The Chosen Ones: How to Write a Book
  • Explore the Unknown to Discover Your True Interests
  • The Hindenburg and Zeppelin Travels Across the World
  • Gods, Lettuce & Shoes: An Anthropological Study of Racism
  • The Power of Poetry
  • How to Build a Mac OS X Program
  • Long Distance Backpacking
  • Duo Interpretation of a Disney Story
  • Earthquakes and Designing Earthquake-proof Buildings
  • Do You See What I See? Optical Art
  • The History of LEGOs
  • Inside Frankenstein's Lab
  • ¡Habla español! Learn to speak Spanish!
  • The Culture and Traditions of Mexico
  • The Ins and Outs of Sketching Animals
  • How to Take Care of Geckos
  • Basic Pencil and Pen and Ink Drawing Skills
  • Number Sense: Shortcuts for Math on Any Test
  • The Causes, Battles, and Effects of World War II
  • Origami: Cultural, Scientific, Political, or Just Plain Fun?
  • The Life Cycle of Butterflies
  • Fun with Book Clubs
  • We Love Horses
  • Documentary Film: How to Write, Direct, and Produce
  • Great Ancient Egyptian Artifacts
  • FIRST Robotics — Space Cookie Team Goes to the World Championship

More Workshops Ideas:

  • Mock trial demonstration/simulation
  • Author talks
  • Showing of a film directed by a student
  • Demonstrations: Lincoln Douglas debate, Oxford debate
  • A speech: original or an interpretation of an established text
  • Student congress demonstration/simulation
  • Leading a discussion on a topic of interest
  • Reading original fiction, poetry or an original manuscript
  • Performing a dance
  • Showcasing original art
  • Presenting an original comedy routine
  • Presenting an original instructional game
  • Teaching a skill
  • Introduction to an organization the student wants to promote
  • Leading a critical session on a work of art
  • Analyzing a piece of abstract art
  • Presentation on health and wellness: exercise, diet, sleep
  • Simulation on effective communication in particular contexts
  • Activities to promote selfknowledge
  • Meditation instruction
  • Discussion about a problem and how to solve it
  • Examining why gifted and talented role models sometimes go bad
  • Examining a world issue and the various points of view on that issue
  • Presentation of the work of students from Freestyle High School
  • Comic book presentations
  • Puppet shows
  • Civil rights topics
  • Where films get science wrong
  • Introduction to Pilates or Yoga
  • How to start and run your own business
  • How to persevere
  • How to manage stress
  • What service learning taught me
  • Science fiction writing
  • Designing a galaxy
  • Building robots
  • Chaos theory
  • Presentations on various sports
  • Seeing eye dog training
  • Presentation on a favorite philosopher
  • How to invent and patent something
  • How to publish
  • Women in politics
  • Computer programming
  • How to make friends
  • Group dynamics
  • Presentation on the bystander effect
  • Emotional literacy development
  • How to develop intuition or creativity
  • The fixed mindset vs. the growth mindset

And tons more possible topics! You decide! Come join us and share your interest, your hobby, your expertise, passion!

Registration Now Open!

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