Gray Matter Marching

The skies cooperated for the second annual March for Science, a year after the damp inaugural 2017 event drew thousands of evidence-based Northwesterners to Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park..!

LEARN MORE: Synapsing for Science!

Once again, our Noggin volunteers delivered the brains, this time to “Portland’s Living Room,” red-bricked Pioneer Square, to advocate for public investment in scientific research, along with what too many institutions somehow neglect – the arts, and arts-integrated STEM/STEAM outreach and teaching…

Noggin volunteers (with pipe cleaner neuron!) and Nobel Prize winning arts and science advocate Eric Kandel

LEARN MORE: From classrooms to Congress!

LEARN MORE: Reductionism in Art and Brain Science – Bridging the Two Cultures

LEARN MORE: Between Science and Art: An evening with Eric Kandel and Alan Alda

The Noggin Builders: Ashley Keates (left side, right hemisphere) & Max Barsana (right side, left hemisphere)

Why not invest more public resources on innovative education – instead of spending $76,000/month for one wealthy public sector retiree, or $4 million annually for one coach!?

LEARN MORE: BioGifting Brains

Does anyone engage the public or political leaders, or excite a new generation about research with another jargon-saturated “elevator pitch” from one tenured faculty member to another?

And what about adequate support for graduate students and postdocs actually in the lab, or the fascinated undergraduates studying and thinking anew about memory, language, sleep, anxiety and consciousness, or the educators who teach, innovate, cross disciplines, go places, mentor and inspire?

LEARN MORE: Evidence for a mental health crisis in graduate education

LEARN MORE: Why Would a Poor Kid Want to Work in Academia?

LEARN MORE: The Changing Face of Employment at Research Universities

LEARN MORE: Experiences and Perceptions of Full-Time, Non- Tenure-Track Faculty at a Four-Year University

And how about a giant (and we mean GIANT) anatomically accurate, hand-crafted, painted, electrified styrofoam brain?!

Mark Rutledge-Gorman from the Portland Alcohol Research Center (PARC) at OHSU has been offering Noggin huge slabs of styrofoam for years, and the March provided the perfect opportunity to clear his garage! Ashley Keates, a talented undergraduate volunteer from Portland State University, along with accomplished artist Max Barsana, who crafted characters for “The Boxtrolls” at Laika Studios, set to work chiseling sulci, painting lobes, and installing LED strips to light up regions associated with the brain’s default network (so this brain could contemplate itself…)

LEARN MORE: Building a Brain for Science

LEARN MORE: Mapping the self in the brain’s default mode network

LEARN MORE: Lobes @ Legacy: Nourishing Noggins for Healthy Kids!

PARC also provided another essential infusion of pipe cleaners and brain handling nitrile gloves!

“You are Beautiful,” by Max Barsana

We grabbed our coffee, draped our long tables in neural swag, hung eye-catching networks of brain cells from tentpoles and signage, and welcomed the pre-March crowds!

Our seasoned outreach volunteers included Lynette Wolf, Louis Sumrall, Jordan Ray, Jesse Hamlin, Andrew Stanley, Jacob Schoen, Alex Kunz, Michael Deveney, Cody Prouty and Jobe Ritchie from Portland State University (many who are members of the active, award winning PSU Neuroscience Club), Sulema Rodriguez, Heather Hamilton and Kayla Townsley, all NIH BUILD EXITO scholars at PSU, Jeehoon Jung from WSU Vancouver, and David Jacobs and Rebecca Hood from OHSU!

We took many questions about brains and brain research…

Photo above by Noggin volunteer Jordan Ray

And we also answered more questions while making brain-related art..!

Photo above by Noggin volunteer Jordan Ray

LEARN MORE: STEAM Art Projects

And…we MARCHED!

The giant Noggin even made the local evening news!

LEARN MORE: Hundreds take to downtown Portland streets in March For Science

Science is real 🧠🎨 “I can’t believe I need to protest for #facts 🙄” 🔬 @sciencemarchpdx 💪🏿👍🏾 https://t.co/D8kG6E2vSK pic.twitter.com/T3KvHfJLMp

— N.W. Noggin (@NWNoggin) April 14, 2018

From Noggin volunteer Jesse Hamlin, whose band Shannon Entropy organized and headlined the popular Noggin Fest last fall: “The thing that stuck out to me is that Noggin always has something that makes people excited (e.g. the big brain – and the real brains!), and getting people excited about science is what outreach is all about.”

Many, many thanks to the accomplished Max Barsana and Ashley Keates, who built The Noggin, our enthusiastic volunteers, and the tireless and extraordinary Denesa Lockwood Oberbeck, our newest Noggin Brain Board member and Expo Coordinator for March for Science Portland!

Contacting legislators might feel burdensome, but it’s also important, and essential in a functioning democracy. We can and should publicly advocate for our community priorities in Congress, state houses, and at universities, including greater investment in scientific research, and the arts-integrated “STEAM” education and outreach that best trains and inspires the next generation to make our home a better place for all…