Neuroscience 2000 Abstract
| Presentation Number: | 21.23 |
|---|---|
| Abstract Title: | Is your brain aware of what the brain can do? Teaching school age children about the brain. |
| Authors: |
Chotiner, J. K.*1
; Livingston, J. S.4
; Hariri, A. S.1
; Tobin, A. J.2
; Carpenter, E. M.3
1Neuroscience Interdepartmental PhD Program, UCLA , Los Angeles, CA 2Brain Research Institute, UCLA , Los Angeles, CA 3Mental Retardation Research Center, UCLA , Los Angeles, CA 452nd Street Elementary School, Los Angeles, CA |
| Primary Theme and Topics |
K. Other - 150. Teaching of neuroscience |
| Session: |
21. Teaching of neuroscience Poster |
| Presentation Time: | Sunday, November 5, 2000 10:00 AM-11:00 AM |
| Location: | Hall G-J |
| Keywords: | Teaching of Neuroscience |
Project Brainstorm, a volunteer program run by graduate students of the Neuroscience Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program at UCLA, was founded as an outreach program bringing neuroscience education to Los Angeles area schools. Over the past five years, graduate students have been visiting classrooms in elementary, junior high and high schools to give interactive lessons covering such topics as functional anatomy, how the brain deals with drugs, and how neuronal communication works. The culminating activity of these visits has been when the students are broken up into small groups to spend time studying bird, rat and real human brains with the graduate students. In an effort to strengthen this relationship between Project Brainstorm and the Los Angeles community, the Brain Research Institute (BRI) at UCLA for the past two years has invited five schools to individually come to campus to learn about neuroscience during Brain Awareness Week. Each day began in an anatomy lab with discussions and demonstrations of brain function in normal and injured states. Students were shown human brains and asked to identify several parts and their functions, and then to make comparisons between the human brains and those of other species. Students were then taken to various labs within the BRI where researchers demonstrated their work. These included Aplysia synaptic plasticity labs where students saw live neurons in action; a microscope facility where three-dimensional pictures of neurons were displayed; and the Brain Mapping Center where students watched their teacher have an MRI taken. The teachers had prepared their students for the visit using various physiology sources, and are now working with the BRI to begin creating an elementary level neuroscience curriculum.
Sample Citation:
[Authors]. [Abstract Title]. Program No. XXX.XX. 2000 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. New Orleans, LA: Society for Neuroscience, 2000. Online.
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