CTY isn't just about tests and summer classes! Maybe you're a teacher looking for new services and best practices; maybe you know a gifted student getting ready for college. Special CTY programs are designed to enrich the lives of gifted young people and the educators who help them achieve their goals. The Sarah D. Barder Educator Recognition Program (SDB) honors teachers from California, Nevada, and Maryland, based on CTY student nominations. Each fall, students enrolled in CTY summer and distance education courses from these three states nominate teachers from their regular schools who have nurtured academic talent in a special way. Nominated teachers are then invited to apply as SDB Fellows. Nearly four hundred teachers have been honored since the program began in 1988. SDB Fellows gather for an annual conference where they share best practices and address a timely educational topic. For additional information, please contact rowins@jhu.edu. In an effort to boost middle school math achievement, Johns Hopkins University researchers are spending a great deal of time in a magical, pixilated place called Descartes’ Cove. This innovative CD-ROM learning environment helps youngsters develop higher-level math skills including geometry, logic, and number theory. It is a collaborative virtual space, accessible via the Web and CD-ROM, where students can explore the farthest reaches of their mathematical reasoning by solving real-world puzzles and problems. Development of Descartes’ Cove is funded by corporate grants from AT&T and the Toyota USA Foundation. The Center Scholars Program was developed by Dr. Andrew Feinberg and the Center for Excellence in Genome Science at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in collaboration with CTY summer programs in order to provide talented under-represented minority students with an interest in science the opportunity to study Genomics, as well as participate in a paid internship at a research laboratory in the field. Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the NHGRI. In cooperation with CTY, the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Johns Hopkins University offers paid summer internships in JHU materials research laboratories to six qualified and under-represented high school students from the greater metropolitan Baltimore area and surrounding counties. In addition, seven teachers, nominated by their schools and selected by MRSEC and CTY, participate in a four-day program designed to introduce them to the research and the scientists of MRSEC. The Joshua Ringel Memorial Fund was established in 1998 by the Ringel family in memory of this former CTY student whose life was tragically cut short in a motorcycle accident just before his 28th birthday. The Memorial Fund supports an annual lecture/reading dedicated to education, poetry, and the imagination. Past visiting poets have included Kenneth Koch, Robert Pinsky, Grace Paley, Yusef Komunyakaa, and John Ashbery. | 
