Young Scholars Day

Young Scholars Day is an opportunity to explore science, technology, engineering, and math through fun, hands-on activities. It is open and free to all upper elementary and middle school students and their families. Students launch rockets, play with polymers, explore electricity, create models, conduct genetic tests, and much more.

SWVGS hosted the first Young Scholars Day in April 2013. Participants from across Southwest Virginia chose from other thirty activities and the event was highly successful.

The 2014 Young Scholars Day was held Saturday, April 12th from 10:00 to 1:00. The successful event was free and participants were invited to take part in fifty different activities. Governor's School faculty and students guided participants through the activities which included column chromatography, cholesterol determination, waveform examination, phytoremediation, experiencing moment of inertia, creating DNA sequence bracelets, and making models of viruses, animal cells, brains, DNA, and reflex arcs.

The 2015 Young Scholars Day was held Saturday, April 18th from 10:00 to 1:00. This third event was also free. Participants were invited to take part in fifty different activities. Governor's School faculty and students guided participants through the activities which included chromatography, distinguishing ocean zones, playing with gak and oobleck, phytoremediation, exploring circuits, creating kinetic sand, and making electromagnets, animal cells, models of brains and neurons.

In 2016, we hosted the fourth Young Scholars Day on April 16 from 10:00 to 1:00. We were pleased to have a large number of participants attend from areas all across Southwest Virginia, including students from Blacksburg, Cana, Christiansburg, Dugspur, Galax, Marion, Newport, Pulaski, Radford, Rural Retreat, and Wytheville. The free event offered 50 activities including these titled: Make a Microbe Masterpiece, Consider Concussion Consequences, Discover Diffraction, Build a Penny Battery, Recreate Ancient Graphs, Code Your Name in Binary Beads.

The 2017 Young Scholars Day was also well-received and we decided to continue to host Young Scholars Day as an annual, free event. 

The 2018 Young Scholars Day was held on Saturday, April 21, from 10:00-1:00 at the Southwest Virginia Governor's School. Students played with polymers, explored electricity, investigated polarity, conducted experiments, and much more.

The 2019 Young Scholars Day was held Saturday, 4/13/19, from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Participants were able to choose from over 40 activities.

The Young Scholars Day events planned for 2020 and 2021 were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.