Academic Summer Camps

Looking for a great camp for your gifted child to attend this summer? There are many camps in and around Tennessee that offer academic and artistic acceleration and enrichment. TAG has put together a partial listing of these programs for your convenience.

Note: a listing on this page does not imply an endorsement of the program or camp by the Tennessee Association for the Gifted.
  • Tennessee’s Governor’s Schools provide rigorous summer programs for gifted and talented high school juniors and seniors in 12 different academic areas. More information can be found here.

East Tennessee
  • Knoxville’s East Tennessee Discovery Center offers numerous science-focused camps for youth ages 6 and up, including courses on model rocketry, chemistry, and biology.
  • The University of Tennessee’s McClung Museum of history, anthropology, and archaeology offers summer camps for 4th, 5th and 6th graders. Campers experience fun lessons on subjects like archaeology and ancient art.
  • UT Knoxville offers many more summer camps through its Kids U program. For a full list of camps and applications, click here.
  • UT Chattanooga’s Challenger Center offers Space Camp for children aged 4 through rising 8th grade. 
  • Chattanooga’s Bright School offers its Bright Summer Funstitute for youth from preschool to 5th grade. Activities include science, technology, culinary skills, and language immersion.
  • The Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga offers a wealth of summer and spring break camp opportunities for curious students ages Pre-K through 5th grade!
  • In addition to these, Chattanooga offers many other academic and arts summer camp opportunities! See this document for more information (PDF). 
Middle Tennessee
  • Programs for Talented Youth at Vanderbilt offers summer academic programs for gifted students from rising first graders through seniors in high school.
  • Cheekwood Summer Camps: Cheekwood Botanical Gardens in Nashville offers a variety of art- and gardening-focused day camps for students aged 2-16.
  • Nashville’s Adventure Science center hosts Science Quest, a series of summer day camps for students in grades K-9. Topics include robotics, chemistry, and engineering.
  • iD Tech Camps holds summer day and overnight computer programming and video game design camps at Vanderbilt University for children aged 7-17.
  • Sewanee offers an intensive summer music study program as part of their Sewanee Summer Music Festival. The program is open to students 12 and up and requires an audition.
  • PAVE is a six-week pre-college program for rising high school seniors hosted by Vanderbilt University. It is designed to provide enriching experience for students intending to study engineering, pre-medicine, science, or technology in college.
 
West Tennessee
  • St. George’s Independent School in Memphis offers academic enrichment workshops for students of all ages.
  • The Memphis Black Arts Alliance offers Arts-a-Fire summer camp, which focuses on African-American history and culture and features singing, acting, dancing, creative writing and field trips.
  • Memphis’s Rhodes College offers its Summer Writing Institute for motivated high school students. Participants can earn two college-level writing credits and will complete a portfolio of college-level writing. 
  • Spring break camps are held at the Memphis Zoo for students in Pre-K through 5th grade.
  • Memphis has many, many more summer camp options! Visit http://www.familyfunspotsmag.com/summercamp.html for a list of arts, academic, and recreational programs that may be right for your child.
  • The Dixie Carter Performing Arts Center in Huntingdon offers many performance and visual arts camp options.

Outside Tennessee
  • Students in grades 4-12 can attend Space Camp at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama!
  • The Center for Gifted Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock hosts a Summer Laureate University for Youth for students in grade K-8.
  • SEMO in Cape Girardeau, Missouri offers Horizons, a summer enrichment program with many possible areas of focus for students ages 5-14.
  • Gifted Atlanta has a comprehensive list of gifted programs in and around the Atlanta area on its website.
  • The Center for Gifted Studies at Western Kentucky University offers two summer options for gifted students:  SCATS, June 10-22, and VAMPY, June 24-July 14.

 
If you know of other camps that should be included, let us know!