The University of Hawaii at Manoa’s popular Gene-ius Day Program for young scientists is expanding its curriculum to include courses for middle-schoolers.

While step-by-step instruction will continue for students in first grade through sixth, seventh- and eighth-graders will move into an "inquiry-based" program, said Ania Wieczorek, an assistant professor at UH’s Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences. "The students are kind of in charge of how they want to proceed with the experiment. This is more ‘Here is the question, how would you answer the question?’

"They will have their own hypothesis, their own way how to ask the question and their own way to figure out how to answer the question."

The program, broadly labeled "From DNA to Diversity," will cover subjects such as cell structure, DNA and genetics. It will offer plenty of hands-on, supervised instruction.

"They’re going to look at the embryo of a fish, and they’re going to look at the moment it was fertilized all the way to the creation of that fish," Wieczorek said. "Basically we’re going to go from the creation of a single organism to the entire universe."

Students, with parental permission, will be able to study their own genome.

Applicants for the seventh- and eighth-grade courses are required to write a short essay explaining their interest in science and provide two letters of reference, but there is no academic requirement for the class. "You don’t have to be an A student to get into the program. We want the students who want to be there," Wieczorek said.

The 10 three-hour sessions are offered the first or third Saturday of each month, starting in September and concluding with a graduation extravaganza in June. The deadline to apply is Aug. 8, and cost is $425 per student, with $200 scholarships available. Scholarship preference is given to any student attending an Oahu public school that did not meet target proficiency levels according to the 2012-2013 Strive HI: Student Group Performance Report.

For information on programs for kids in grades 1 to 8, visit www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/geneius-day.