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About Brain Research
The Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences has been involved in outreach programs since early in the 90's - designated the "Decade of the Brain". It started with a faculty member and a few graduate students going out to local schools with a cart full of brain science stuff including sheeps' brains that the students could touch, and a human brain in a jar that they could study, and lots of other brain science things to experiment with. Science teachers were invited back to Penn to see demos of modules that they could incorporate into their classes. This approach was very popular with the schools but it was very labor and time intensive.
Brain Awareness Week had the same goals as the Decade of the Brain but had the advantage that it didn't end after ten years. It was initiated by the Dana Alliance and picked up later by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). For one week in March, members of the Society are encouraged to promote awareness of neuroscience research in any way that they can. The University of Maryland's contribution was a brain bee for high school students. This was so successful that, with the backing of the SfN, they turned it into an annual national event.
Brain Bee: INS became involved at the beginning without really knowing how to organize it or even how to find the students to take part - enter Penn's Upward Bound Program who were looking for competitions to engage their high school participants - any kind of competition. INS is now gearing up for their seventh bee, the local heat to be held on Saturday, February 11, 2006. It is open to any area high school student who wants to learn about their brain. The questions all come from the SfN publication - Brain Facts - and Philadelphia area high school students can sign up and receive the book by contacting Angela Gilmore at agilmore@mail.med.upenn.edu.
One thing leads to another and our brain bee venture led to our offering an Introductory Neuroscience Course for high school students during June and July when INS graduate students teach their own particular area of expertise. It's a win-win situation, exposing young students to the science of the brain, and our graduate students to a challenging teaching situation.
This is kind of the same idea as the Kids Judge Fairs - science fairs held by faculty, graduate students and undergraduates - and here's the fun part - judged by fourth graders. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has been sponsoring Kids Judge Fairs for a number of years now. Deb Colbern is the national organizer and we persuaded Deb to come and hold one of these events at Penn for our INS 50th anniversary year celebrations. Our fair will be on Wednesday, December 7, 2005 under the guidance of our local organizer, Steve Fluharty. Steve is gathering a group of undergraduates from the Biological Basis of Behavior Program of which he is the Director, and together with neuroscience graduate students and faculty to advise and engineering students to construct, they will attempt to gain high marks from Philly area fourth graders for their demonstrations of the workings of the brain - hopefully in clear, graphic and fun ways. To learn more, click here.
Finally, INS has recently forged a link with Penn's Center for Community Partnerships. This program, which is funded by NIH, builds bridges between Philadelphia teachers and Penn faculty and students, and again our students gain valuable teaching experience while the teachers have access to the latest neuroscience research.
For general inquiries and information, please contact Jane Hoshi.
