North Central Florida Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we cancelled our in-person activities and restructured the event to be run online. Since many of the schools in our area had hybrid (online and in-person) classrooms, we dropped off activity materials to the schools for any in-person students and provided parents with a list of materials necessary to complete the activities from home. Our volunteers were able to conduct all lectures to their assigned classrooms virtually. Undergraduate and Graduate students as well as Post Docs and Faculty at the University of Florida led various interactive lessons and activities with over 1000 students in Alachua county alone this year. Our chapter also partnered with the UF BRAIN Center to stress the importance of brain safety and wearing helmets. They generously donated helmets for giveaways to the students as part of the UF Helmet Safety Initiative. Overall, even though the structure of Brain Awareness Week changed this year due to extenuating circumstances, we feel that we have achieved our goals.

The most immediate outcome from the event was the feedback we received in announcing that we would still run the event this year. It is an event that the children look forward to every year and they were ecstatic that we would still be running it in 2021. We have also had other school districts in Florida asking if we would consider expanding our event to their areas. Additionally, teachers and students expressed their excitement to participate and were grateful to the volunteers.

Providing BAW virtually this year enabled us to reach schools that are farther away than normal and reach students and teachers who do not typically get to participate. We are considering adding a virtual component to our BAW annually in addition to in person events if we can obtain the necessary volunteer support.