St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Finding ways to get elementary and middle school students interested in science was a major objective of our Brain Awareness Week activity. A team of ten St. Jude and University of Tennessee Health Science Center scientists recently spent a day at the St. Jude Adopt-A-School—Bellevue Middle School—to discuss brain awareness and related topics such as safety. Through a variety of experiments focused on neuroscience, the scientists showed students many approaches to learning more about the brain. This was an opportunity to get these students excited and to be thinking about science as a possible career path.What was really gratifying was that some of the kids came back during their breaks to look at the exhibits and participate in some of the experiments again. We employed a number of hands-on demonstrations, including perception goggles, 2 point discrimination, and experiments regarding taste smell and visual illusions.

This was an opportunity for participants to build a netwrok of volunteer scientists from differnt organizations with an interest in science education outreach.