Science Outreach

The Brain Research Institute’s Educational and Community
Science Outreach Programs

The BRI sponsors multiple scientific and educational outreach programs throughout the year for the greater Los Angeles community. Events include school visits, tours and demonstrations by "Project Brainstorm" and "Interaxon," "Brain Awareness Week" activities, judging and presentation of awards at the California State Science Fair, and BRI Summer High School and Undergraduate Student Research Internship Programs. 

Project Brainstorm
Project Brainstorm grew out of the former SPARCS (Special Achievement Rewards for College Scholars) Program that was developed by Dr. Arnold Scheibel and Ms. Norma Bowles of the ARCS Foundation (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists). In 2006, two graduate students in the UCLA Interdepartmental Neuroscience Ph.D. Program, Libby O’Hare and Rafael Romero, together with Dr. Joseph B. Watson organized Project Brainstorm into a formal course that offers undergraduates the opportunity to conduct field internships in Los Angeles area schools. Under the current leadership of Nanthia Suthana, Neuroscience graduate students teach undergraduates at UCLA how to speak to K-12 students about how the human brain works in a simple way. On a typical visit, a team of 2 graduate and 8 undergraduate students teach kids with a very brief power point presentation, a few teaching props, plastic models of the brain, real human brains, and a few animal brains for comparison. Through group participation, interactive games at stations, and hands-on exercises, students receive instruction in the basic science of the brain such as "What does the brain do? What is it made of? What happens as your brain grows? What is good for your brain? What is bad for your brain?" More formal topics included Brain Injury, Learning and Memory, Neurological Disorders and Effects of Drugs on the Brain. Students and teachers alike love our Neuroscience students and they respond with enthusiasm and show a great deal of interest in the brain. Hopefully this interest will survive, be nurtured and grow until the students are able to pursue an educational path that will lead them to careers in science. Project Brainstorm together with Interaxon also holds special community events off campus.

For additional information, click here.

Interaxon
Interaxon is an Undergraduate Neuroscience Educational Outreach Group affiliated with the BRI. Interaxon was founded in 2006 by Shanna Fang who was among the first group of undergraduate students to complete the Project Brainstorm course. Interaxon consists of 50 or more members from a wide variety of majors. Their primary focus is helping schools in disadvantaged Los Angeles areas which are under-funded in the sciences. Interaxon uses approaches such as stations, brain models, novel games, and props to talk about the brain, often with help from graduate students and faculty. Interaxon has been a huge success in the Los Angeles area, reaching out to a large number of K-12 student groups with as many as 6 presentations per quarter to as many as 150 students in a single visit to a school.

For additional information, click here.

BRI-SURE selects participants based on academic achievement, leadership, and commitment to diversity. BRI-SURE seeks students from either underrepresented or economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The 10-week program includes weekly lectures given by BRI scientists tailored to our students. We also provide training in scientific writing and poster preparation and presentation. The program is under the UCLA SPUR umbrella and participates in many of their campus wide summer activities such as the culminating summer poster day.

For more information:
Dr. Dwayne D. Simmons
Associate Director, BRI Outreach
MARC Director
Department of Physiological Science
4214 Life Science Building
Box 951606
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1606
Phone: (310) 794-1228
Fax: (310) 206-9184
Email: BRI-SURE@mednet.ucla.edu
http://www.ugeducation.ucla.edu/urc-care/scholmarc.htm

Brain Awareness Week

Brain Awareness Week 2009 Showcase Video (wmv 14.0mb)
Brain Awareness Week 2008 Showcase Video (fla 7.1mb)

Each year the UCLA Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience recognizes Brain Awareness Week (BAW). During a typical BAW, over 250 students from schools in Los Angeles county visit the BRI on a very special field trip to celebrate the brain. Each day K-12 students arrive in front of the Gonda (Goldschmied) Neuroscience and Genetics Research Center to join Project Brainstorm leaders, Nanthia Suthana, Marina Ziehn and Angela Rizk-Jackson. The tour begins with a brief overview on the structure and function of the brain, and then graduate students conduct presentations on the brain, including some hands-on activities, and educational, age-appropriate presentations ranging from brain injury, two-point discrimination testing, sensation, synaptic function, hemispheric differences, motor system and lobe functions set up by the Interaxon undergraduate group. The students then visit research laboratories in the Gonda Center where they hear presentations about research on topics such as Aplysia, Drosophila, and memory research. Regardless of grade level, all students express great curiosity, insight, and interest throughout the entire day while being guided through the fascinating neuroscience research environment at UCLA.

New Initiatives
The BRI Outreach Program also sponsors science fairs off campus at local high schools and also at the state level. The BRI sponsors prizes at the Annual California State Science Fair, awarding multiple Neuroscience prizes for both the senior (grades 9-12) and junior (grades 6-8) levels. During the summer the BRI also places as many as 20 local high school students in research labs in the UCLA neuroscience community. The BRI will also sponsor winners of local high school fairs as part of the Summer Internship Program.

BRI Outreach Contacts
Joseph B. Watson, Ph.D.
BRI Outreach Program Director
jwatson@mednet.ucla.edu

Nanthia Suthana
Project Brainstorm Team Leader
Nanthia@ucla.edu

UCLA Links
UCLA Project Brainstorm http://www.studentgroups.ucla.edu/projectbrainstorm
UCLA Interaxon http://interaxon.scienceontheweb.net

Educational Links
NERVE, Neuroscience Education Resources Virtual Encycloportal is the Society for Neuroscience information gateway for teaching K-12 students about the nervous system: http://www.sfn.org/nerve
Fun sites for kids to understand the brain through games and analogies:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html
http://www.dana.org/resources/brainykids
A creative site for understanding how drugs influence the brain reward pathways:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction
Online Book of Brain Facts:
http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=brainfacts
National Institute on Drug Abuse- School materials and links to correct information about abused drugs:
http://backtoschool.drugabuse.gov/index.html