Middle school is a challenging time for kids and parents alike.  The onset of hormones, continuing brain development, and detrimental social influences can make middle school a place to tune out and turn off, or worse, start self-harming behaviors.  GATE is a great alternative to the standard 6th to 8th grade options:  a place for kids and parents who need a learning community where the cool hotness of learning -- hands on/minds on-- is the main menu.   GATE is a place where kids don't shut down during middle school.   Instead, like unfolding fractals or budding flowers, GATE kids have educational and social space to open out into what draws them forward -- they self-identify as  writers, actors, entrepreneurs, singers, scientists, mathematicians, artists, historians, philosophers, origami gurus, violin virtuosos, engineers, horseback riders, soccer stars, and more.

GATE students culminate their final two inquiry periods by doing Heart's Desire projects --  it's an opportunity for each 8th grader to select and investigate a topic that intrigues them, and then create a presentation of their own design.  Past Heart's Desire projects  have included:  a history of vampires through literature and science;  jet wing design; native plants landscape design for a student's backyard;  writing, illustrating, and publishing a short children's story; research on color blindness and its causes; the emotional/psychological experience of flow; particle accelerator design; an opera about the Indian salt wars; body decomposition; hypnosis; and much more.