Event(s) Summary
Number of Events Organized During Brain Awareness Week:
1
Year:
2022
Type of Events Held:
- Conference/Forum
- Lecture/Briefing
- School Program
- Workshop
Target Audiences:
- Elementary school students (1-5)
- General Public
- High school students (9-12)
- K-12 Teachers
Approximate Number of People Reached:
75
Details of Major Brain Awareness Week Events/Activities:
The key idea of our BAW project was to encourage children (5 to 16 y.o.) and their parents to learn new facts about brain, to read about recent discoveries in Neuroscience and to speculate together with scientists about future research in Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences. To achieve this goal we organized the 1st Conference in Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences for Children (https://perm.hse.ru/scienceperm/neuroscience). First, we made a call for applications at all schools in our region to invite children to prepare their review or research papers. The best applications were selected for oral presentations at the conference. Non-selected applicants were also invited to join the conference, which was open to anyone interested, including parents, school teachers and students. Our conference schedule included:
– “research” section moderated and judged by neuroscientists. The best presentations were awarded with diplomas and prizes, including books on Neuroscience adapted for participants age.
– art section – exhibition of the works of pre-school children. Different art formats (drawings, clay modeling, etc.) depicting brain organization were exhibited and the best works were also awarded with diplomas and prizes.
– workshop for the youngest participants (5 to 10 y.o.) introducing the basis of brain organization and functioning. During the workshop each participant colored its own neuron, cut it from the paper and all neurons were glued to each other to create a big artificial neuronal network.
– two open plenary lectures by invited speakers:
– “Brain state: from experiment to model and back” by Ksenia Pavlova (PhD, TReNDS Center)
– “Brain and Language” by Alina Minnigulova (Center for Language and Brain, HSE University
Event Planning & Publicity
Publicity Methods Used:
- Emails
- Website
- Social Media
Resources
What downloadable materials from the Foundation did you use for your events?
- Certificate of Participation
What other downloadable materials would you like the Foundation to provide?
- New Puzzles/Games
Which BAW graphic materials did you use in publicizing your events?
- Brain Awareness Week Logos
Feedback & Keys to Success
How do you feel BAW participation benefited your organization and the local community?
Since neuroscience studies often require specific equipment we didn’t make any expectations on the quality of reports. Surprisingly, we had many high quality submissions, including experimental studies! For example, G.A. (grade 10) studied the impact of binaural music on creativity and its EEG-biomarkers, while E.M. (grade 5!) suggested approaches to improve attention using portable EEG system. After all participants gave a positive feedback and expressed their willingness to further learn neuroscience.
