Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language

This year’s Brain Awareness Week program included: A) an online Neuroscience Fair for all ages (March 13-14, 2021), held in Zoom, including interactive talks, interviews and fun activities organized by the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language. Topics covered in the talks: – Our senses and the brain. – What can we learn measuring brain activity by electroencephalography and magnetic resonance techniques. – How do people with hearing problems communicate. Topics covered in the interviews: – What can we learn from the brain of a baby. – What can we learn from the brain of a dyslexic. Topics covered in the activities: We organized a pub quiz using Kahoot platform including fun facts about the brain that we had mentioned during the talks. People enjoyed a lot learning while entering a fun competition. Feedback: The lectures and the activities worked quite well online. We had less attendance than last year that the event was happening onsite in the museum, where people had the chance to interact with us, and get involved in tangible activities, but overall from people who did attend we received very good feedback. We think that a mixed online and onsite format would serve well next year, now that we have the know-how of both, as the online format gives the opportunity from people outside San Sebastian to attend. B) Workshops for schools at the Eureka Museum (March 15-18, 2021). Workshops took place on site with groups of students coming from the same school and classrooms. Topics covered: – What makes human brain unique? Is it different from that of an animal? – What is the role of a neuron? – How does the brain help us see, smell and taste? – Perceptual illusions. We received a lot of applications this year.

The events organized focused on making Neuroscience findings accessible to the general public of all ages through fun and informative activities. People are very interested in learning about what the brain can teach us, when the content is given in an easy-to-understand way.

The transition to an online format of the event, even if it was challenging being the first time we do this in an online platform, we think that it has a lot to offer, and it can reach even more people that don’t have the chance to visit the event onsite. Moreover, it gives the advantage that the talks and activities can get recorded and people can access the material all over the year.