Iowa State’s CY-TAG and EXPLORATIONS! programs give middle- and high-school students the opportunity for extra learning over the summer.

Keith Davis, program administrator, said the programs allow students in grades seven through 11 to learn at a super-fast rate.

“They take courses that are equivalent to a year of high school work or a semester of college work in the two-week period,” he said. “They go to class six hours on weekdays and three hours on Saturday.”

CY-TAG classes include mathematics, physics, Spanish and world literature.

EXPLORATIONS! courses, on the other hand, hit on “hot topics” in their respective fields, Davis said.

“The EXPLORATIONS! program only lasts one week, and for the one week they’re essentially on the same schedule, but during that one week they don’t have the time to cover an entire year of curriculum, so it’s more of an exploratory program,” he said.

Under Construction: Building Your Homepage, Forensic Science and Virtue and Vice in Everyday Life are some EXPLORATIONS! courses.

Davis said he thinks the programs provide a positive environment for middle and high-schoolers.

“It’s just really neat to see these kids come together, especially after all these tragedies like in Littleton, because they’re really serious about schoolwork,” he said.

CY-TAG and EXPLORATIONS! provide a place for students to meet people with similar interests, he said.

“When I get feedback from parents, they say some of these kids come from schools where it’s not very cool to study hard and excel at school, but when they come to these programs they meet other kids like themselves who love to get challenged,” he said.

Students stay in the ISU residence halls during the program’s run, he said.

This is the 14th year of the programs, Davis said. It is also the third year of a non-residential program for fourth- through sixth-graders called ADVENTURES!

Total enrollment for the programs is 300 people, he said.

Alexandra S. Rundle, a junior at Ames High School, was at EXPLORATIONS! two years ago where she participated in a class called Theater of Comedy, Tragedy and Social Commentary.

“We acted out plays using scripts in the morning each day, and then in the afternoon, we discussed them at length,” she said. “Our discussions gave new meaning to plays with messages that were perhaps ambiguous.”