Event(s) Summary
Number of Events Organized During Brain Awareness Week:
We organized two different events: a 3 day conference for adults and workshops, during the whole week, for school groups.
Year:
2015
Type of Events Held:
- Conference/Forum
- Other
- Symposium
Target Audiences:
- Elementary school students(1-5)
- General Public
- High School students(9-12)
- Middle school students(6-8)
- Other
- Patients & Caregivers
- University students
Approximate Number of People Reached:
In total, at least 250 adults attended the talks and more than 500 children took part in the workshop activities.
Details of Major Brain Awareness Week Events/Activities:
We organized a series of talks where experts on the brain (neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, biologists) shared their knowledge and explored ongoing questions on a variety of relevant “hot” topics in neuroscience in a way that anyone could understand. The topics ranged from vision, learning, language acquisition, bilingualism, techniques used to explore the brain, as well as some common myths about the brain. To cover as many topics as possible, each talk lasted no more than 15 minutes. Each session had 5 talks per evening, with time for audience questions and a short break. http://www.bcbl.eu/events/burmuinaren-astea/en/conference/ For our future scientists we offered interactive workshops, intended to help them to understand the brain´s structure and functioning through simple and fun activities. We worked the following main questions: what is a neuron and how does it work? How the other animal’s brains are similar/different from ours? How to take care of your brain? And how much do you know about the brain? The workshops’ contents and design were adapted to each age group. We believe to have achieved our goals due to the great enthusiasm that adult and children participants had during our activities, they reported to have enjoyed and learned a lot.
Event Planning & Publicity
Publicity Methods Used:
- Calendar Listings (newspapers, radio, television)
- Emails
- Mailings
- Posters/Flyers
- Press Release/Media Advisory
- Website
- Social Media
Which of These Publicity Methods Was The Most Successful?
Resources
Of the Dana Foundation publications/resources distributed at your event(s), if any, please indicate the three most popular. Please choose up to three. If "other," please indicate below:
- none
What downloadable materials from the Foundation did you use for your events?
- BAW Certificate of Participation
- Mindboggling Coloring Sheets
What other downloadable materials would you like the Foundation to provide?
- Lesson Plans
- Activities/Experiments
- New Coloring Sheets
Which BAW graphic materials did you use in publicizing your events?
- BAW Logos
Feedback & Keys to Success
How do you feel BAW participation benefited your organization and the local community?
The BAW was a very good opportunity to share with the local community the work we develop at BCBL. We expect that by doing so we can promote scientific culture, increase brain awareness, promote of the importance of basic neuroscience research, and by making possible a more direct interaction of the community with our scientists to inspire more people in the pursuit of scientific careers.
Please share any suggestions or lessons learned that may help others plan future events:
It is important to use all promotion channels available and make sure people get to know about the event. There is great interest by non-scientific community on neuroscience. So as long as there is an efficient way to invite people, there will be a surprisingly nice and large quorum for your event.
Did/do you like our Facebook page?
Yes
Quotable comments which capture successful aspects of your event(s):
We received a lot of positive feedback from the local community during and after the event. For instance, this 61 year old philologist, who attended the talks, wrote an email to us saying the talks were “food for thought” and “a true gift for the people of San Sebastian”.
