NEUROSCIENCE AWARD GOES TO CAROLINE WASKOW OF ST. ODILIA SCHOOL
For immediate release.
NR-08-04 (sent 10/15/04) For more information, please call Elissa Petruzzi at (202) 462-6688.
NEUROSCIENCE AWARD GOES TO CAROLINE WASKOW OF ST. ODILIA SCHOOL
WASHINGTON, DC October 15 – Caroline Waskow, a teacher at St. Odilia School in Shoreview, Minnesota, has been awarded a “Teacher Travel Award” to attend Neuroscience 2004, a scientific meeting in San Diego, October 23 – 27. Waskow is one of five teachers nationwide to receive the award, given by the Society for Neuroscience.
“I find neuroscience fascinating and would like to develop greater appreciation of the relationship between general health and the brain,” says Waskow. “A goal for my students is to help them to understand that the health of their brain and nervous system affects the quality of their own lives.”
Waskow, previously an environmental scientist who now holds a master's degree in education from the University of Minnesota, already has plans for the meeting. “I would like to develop a partnership with a neuroscientist to allow my students the opportunity to get to know a scientist and to gain greater understanding of how scientific research is conducted,” she says. “I believe my students would benefit from knowing scientists as real people.”
Teachers receiving the award will have the opportunity to attend the wide variety of scientific sessions available. Lectures on spinal cord regeneration, human vision, and Alzheimer's disease are only a few of the many meeting highlights. In addition, there are several education-related workshops designed to help teacher awardees focus more on the needs of their classrooms at home.
“Exposing teachers to groundbreaking neuroscience and methods to convey this material to students allows teachers to bring the newest and best that science has to offer into their classrooms,” says Eric Chudler, chair of the Society's Committee on Neuroscience Literacy. “These discoveries can spark students' interest in science, and encourage students to pursue careers in neuroscience.”
More than 25,000 scientists from around the world will gather to present and discuss the latest developments in neuroscience research, at the 34th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The meeting will feature more than 17,000 presentations on topics ranging from neuroethics to behavioral disorders.
The Society for Neuroscience, with more than 35,000 members, is the world's largest organization of basic researchers and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.
