Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin(1)

For the whole week we offered a program for different target groups: The BAW started on Monday morning with a three hour program for high school pupils at the Humboldt Graduate School: a talk on perception and perceptional illusions followed by seven different workshops to choose from, e.g. on pain, emotion and stress or the senses (75 participants). On Tuesday morning we showed the movie “Inside out” for pupils grade 5-7 followed by a Q&A session with Prof. I. Dziobek (51 participants). In the evening we organized a talk by Prof. E. Altenmüller on the effect of music on thinking, feeling and emotions (100 participants). In cooperation with the Berlin Metropolitan School we organized a school visit by six PhD students who gave an overview of their research (50 participants). For younger children we organized a workshop in the “gelbe Villa”, a day care activity center for kids aged from 4-12. In this two hours workshop the kids aged from 6-10 years could do brain puzzles, play a neuron game, do a decision-making experiment and get an introductory talk on brain functions and illusions (25 participants). In the evening we offered a talk by Kate Stone “Language, learning and the brain” in English in cooperation with the POP SCIENCE Café (70 participants). On Friday evening Prof. Olaf Blanke gave a talk on body self-consciousness and experiences with neuro-prosthesis (100 participants), hosted by the Schering Stiftung. During the whole week, the exhibition “Crossing Fibers: A Retrospectroscopic View”, curated by the Neurobureau, was displayed (250 visitors).

For us the BAW events have also a recruiting function for the future. Kids and pupils get aware of brain research and might be interested in doing a career in this area. Our program has served as inspiration for organizers from other cities who would like to set up a BAW program as well.