California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

We held a Brain Awareness Science Fair at our University for 6th graders from several elementary/middle schoolers in our community. A team of Undergraduates spent a year organizing and planning the event. As the supervising faculty, I had two major objectives, to create and nurture a student community focused on around brain health and promoting neuroscience research, and secondly to create a fun and memorable educational experience focused on the brain for local middle schoolers. We assembled a core team of undergraduates throughout the Fall and we met weekly to organize the event mostly from scratch and ideas gleaned from the BAW website. We held a 3 hour event and invited 3 6th grader classes from local schools on 3/13/2019. We created 13 interactive stations for the event. We wanted to make sure the event was fun and engaging for the 6th graders, so we opted for goal-driven activities rather than passive exhibits. Each station accommodated 15 6th graders, wa lead by 1 or more undergraduates and was planned to last 15 minutes. We had a raffle, punch cards and prizes. Also all the students received the stickers, brain pencils, brain erasers courtesy of the Dana Foundation. In total, the event served 300 6th graders plus another 50 or so chaperons and teachers. We had 12 student organizers plus another 15 volunteers staffing the event. I would say the event was a total success. We planned on receiving 200 students but 300 showed up. We were totally able to accommodate the 50% overflow. We have received multiple calls for a repeat event and just last week we received about 100 hand drawn thank you cards from the students. We will attach our agenda. We are planning to add an event for undergraduates next year

Our institution and the local community benefited from the event. First there was an outpouring of excitement following the event form the elementary schools. The teachers and chaperons contacted me and told me the that this was one of the most interesting school events that they participated in. Secondly, our institution benefited from the outreach and the undergraduates that organized the event learned a great deal about event planning and now have an excellent item for their CVs.

If you are working at a University setting and trying to interface with a school district, finding the right people to contact can be challenge. would recommend make multiple different contacts, not just the district. I would also contact the individual schools. The districts don’t necessarily know the best people to contact at the individual schools so communication can break down if you only rely on one source. We were given reassurances for months ahead of time by the district that the schools were on board, meanwhile the schools actually had no knowledge of the event up until two days before the event! Luckily it all worked out, but we did get 100 extra students showing up.

Yes helpful