Gebze Technical University

In this year’s event, faculty members have visited 2 nurseries, 3 different elementary schools and 1 secondary school, and reached a total of almost 400 students. As usual, in this now-traditional activity, faculty members had given a brief presentation (5-10 min, depending on the level of students) on their research area, including brain imaging, neuroscience, neurobiology, and learning; they have talked to students about “neurons” (with their “hair” or dendrites, and their “arms” or axons), role-playing as neuronal networks within classroom, and demonstrating with an interactive home-made toy neuron. We discussed what brain means to us, its neural composition and how it helps us with our daily activities. Brain imaging systems and their usage in certain conditions were mentioned. Students had a chance to see how the brain can be “fooled” by optic illusions. They were given various activities at specific stations such as juggling, optical illusions, exploring brain model and so on. Activity sheets, caps and brain-shaped erasers were given to the children. Slogan that won last year’s competition was used in this year’s theme. The activities were shared on social media, mainly on our lab’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AxanLab),laboratory website (https://axanlab.com/outreach/) and twitter accounts (@isil_aksan), TUBAS (Neuroscience Society of Turkey) Brain Awareness Week Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/BeyinFarkindaligiHaftasiBAW/), Facebook pages of partner schools or science centers

Every year more and more kids are aware of brain studies, and more teachers and schools learn about the program and organize their own events. This year, one of the nurseries had organized a drawing competition on the brain, and they have provided us with two of the best drawings as “gifts”