Hellenic SOS Villages, Hospitality Center for male children

In the context of the BAW 2019, we, from the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and Poirazi lab have organized a variety of activities for specific age groups to explain and explore the fascinating concept of how the brain works. Our team tried to make this week impressive and memorable with two separate events. The events took place from 14-15.03.2019 in the Hospitality Center for male children and at SOS Children’s Villages in Heraklion, Greece, respectively. The audience was comprised of elementary/middle/high school students. Prior and throughout the week, we disseminated the event through mailing lists and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), so as to grab people’s attention. Our activities were designed to address all the aforementioned target groups. With an introductory lecture on how the brain works we started the BAW at both events. The aim of the workshop was to familiarize children with the most important functional regions of the brain by focusing on the importance of learning and memory processes. For this purpose, a model of the brain was utilized alongside with the presentation and an interactive discussion with the students. Afterwards, students were able to choose between several hands-on activities, games and experiments, that reached across disciplines and age groups. Specifically, elementary students were engaged with making types of neurons with plasteline and painting neuroscience images, middle students observed nerve cells as an electrical circuit and played memory games, and high school students were making neural networks with the assistance of NEURONIFY.