The Reign of the Brain

For the first session (Monday), I went over a 30-minute interactive overview of the nervous system using PearDeck slides. I did this to help students have more of a context when talking to guest neuroscientists. This allowed students to interact with the slides, whether that be answering questions, drawing neurons, or just asking questions. During the second half of the session, guest Dr. Gillian Hue, a neuroethics and behavioral neuroscience lecturer at Emory University, talked to the students about her work and answered their questions.

For the second session (Thursday), I opened with a quick review game that I borrowed from The Dana Foundation’s activities. Then, I introduced children’s book author and neuroscientist Dr. Theanne Griffith. She did a read-aloud from one of her books, Brain Trouble, from her series The Magnificent Makers in which she writes about kids exploring STEM in a magical way. She then did a demonstration of how an eardrum works using a bowl, plastic wrap, and sprinkles. Finally, we opened up to Q&A, and students asked her all of their questions.

My overall goal with this 2-event series was to expose students to different career and research opportunities they could possibly pursue in neuroscience while also expanding their understanding of the brain. I also offered for Girl Scouts to earn Dana Foundation badges through attending and participating, and this has led me to develop a badge curriculum for scouts to accomplish. Overall, I believe these events were successful in my goals!

Note: all events were held virtually via Zoom

More students in my area are now aware of the neuroscience field, which is my biggest goal in participating in BAW. One immediate outcome has been launching a Dana Foundation badge curriculum for Girl Scouts to attend hour-long sessions to learn about the brain. This would not have happened if I wasn’t reached out to by a troop leader who had heard about my BAW event and wanted her troop to be able to earn the badge.

For Girl Scouts, you can earn your Dana Foundation patch by registering for your troop using this link: https://www.thereignofthebrain.com/registration.html

For future BAW events, having guest neuroscientists come talk to kids is the ultimate way to spread brain awareness because they are the experts and they are super excited to talk about their work!