North Dakota Governor's School

North Dakota Governor's School, a member of the National Conference of Governor's Schools, is a six-week tuition free program offered to North Dakota high school students. It is a residential honors program offered during the summer at North Dakota State University for motivated students . The program starts in June and continues through the early part of July.

Areas of study

Areas of study for the North Dakota Governor's School include architecture, engineering, mathematics, science, information technology, performing arts, English, and visual arts.

Architecture

Students will learn the basics of the design process, including ordering skills, function, structure, context, sustainability, aesthetics, historical precedent, sketching and documenting a design solution. The students will then be engaged in the design and construction of a built object serving the needs of the Fargo-Moorhead community.

Engineering

Students experience mechanical, electrical, civil, industrial, manufacturing and construction engineering during the first week of Governor’s Schools. They are then paired with a research engineer mentor and join a research group based on their interest and availability of projects. Students will conduct research to discover innovative solutions to real-world problems and present their findings in a poster session during the final week of Governor’s Schools.

Mathematics

Students involved with the mathematics program at North Dakota Governor's School working together as a group on college level math problems. In addition to working with math, they also work in the area of computer sciences. At the end of the program they are required to write a paper regarding a specific area inside of computer sciences.

Laboratory Sciences

Students involved with the science program at North Dakota Governor's School choose and work with a mentor at the university. Typical areas of interest for mentorship include biology, chemistry, physics, materials science, psychology, and pharmacy.

Over the course of the six weeks, the student will work with their mentor on a project that either the mentor or student chooses. Students must complete a scientific paper detailing their project. At the end of the six weeks, students then deliver a presentation accompanied by a PowerPoint to a group of students and adults on what has been a part of their project and what they have learned. Students also prepare a scientific poster to share.

Information Technology

Students involved in the computer science program learn how to write html, videogames, and general computer programming. This is a branch off the Math program and took the place of the Business program in 2009.

Performing Arts

Students involved in performing arts spend their time in the program studying and being actively involved in areas of performing arts including singing, dancing, and acting. They work continuously on a play throughout the six weeks and are integrated into all aspects of a play including the set design and acting inside of the play.The last week of the program the students involved in performing arts take their play on tour across the state of North Dakota. They perform their play for many of the cities or areas that members of the performing arts area come from.

English

Students in the English program receive lectures on the subjects of literature, creative writing, linguistics, multimedia, the teaching of English, and other assorted topics. In the past, students created three magazines by the end of the three weeks and their presentations involved reading aloud one of the pieces written during the program.

Life and Leadership

Life and Leadership (or L & L) is an activity that all students of the North Dakota Governor's School program attend put on by the NDSU Center for 4H. This activity takes place every morning before classes for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes. In this activity, the students learn life skills, gain trust, build teamwork abilities, and discuss issues concerning teenagers today.

Also, as a part of Life and Leadership, students spend one weekend in the local community spending their time volunteering to help out local organizations.

Other activities

During the six weeks, students participate in a fine arts activity. The activities include band, creative writing, drama, drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpting, and yearbook.

Students also have activities off-campus. They spend one weekend in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and one weekend canoeing on the Crow Wing River, also in Minnesota.

References

[1] - the official ND Governor's school website