“It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.” –Michel de Montaigne
And there were so many others!
We enthusiastically returned to one of the nation’s largest Brain Fairs at Portland’s Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) to continue our robust volunteer efforts at expanding brain awareness!
Phineas Gage outside OMSI…
LEARN MORE: Franklin and Phineas Gage
We had THREE long tables piled high with colorful pipe cleaners, jars of finger-staining ink, sketch pads, electrodes, Mindflex Duels, the Human to Human Interface, formalin-fixed human and other animal cerebrums – and over 30 informed and eager NW Noggin volunteers!
The morning crew – talking neuroscience and making art from 9:00am until 5:00pm!
LEARN MORE: Noggin @ Brain Awareness Week!
And we welcomed another HUGE, knowledgeable, inspiring undergraduate contingent from Portland State University ready to “Let Knowledge Serve the City,” including Jesus Martinez, Michael Deveney, Kyle Stinson, Emily Carl, Greyson Moore, Sara Moreno, McKenzie Figuracion, Maverick Grey, Aaron Eisen, Darrin Lane, Vanessa Batulayan, Sai Kiersarsky, Julia Gullikson, Johnny Uriarte-Lopez, Sydney Duran, Brenda Yan, Stephanie Paulsen, Robby Heiberg, Cam Howard, Jason Blume, Olivia Hill, Leah Arkills-Mclain, Paul Delahanty and Natalia Stoner…
We also welcomed Abby Kosiara from OHSU, newcomers Royce Yoshimura and Nicco Martin from Hawaii’s Kapiolani Community College, and accomplished outreach participants from suburban WSUV, among them Jeehoon Jung, Iris Gutierrez, Sierra Baca and Bradley Mahoney…
We were also joined by Catherine Caine, a second grade teacher at Waikiki Elementary, the 2015 Teacher of the Year in Hawaii, and one of four finalists for National Teacher of the Year – as well as Jake Deering from the Oregon College of Arts & Crafts, Brain Board member Kindra Crick and Kindra’s expert neuroscientist daughter Cora!
LEARN MORE: In the Spirit of Learning
And once again, Noggin most definitely put the “brains” in Brain Fair!
FROM LAST YEAR: Putting the brains in the 2018 Brain Fair!
“That’s inside me!?”
“You study brains? How can I study brains too?”
“Are there any differences in the brains of men and women?”
LEARN MORE: Sex/gender differences in cognition, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy
LEARN MORE: Beyond sex differences: new approaches for thinking about variation in brain structure and function
“Why do we need all the different lobes?”
“Why is the raccoon brain more wrinkly than the cat..?”
“I have more brain cells than my dad?”
“Birds have more tightly packed neurons than people?”
LEARN MORE: Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain
LEARN MORE: Soup for Brains!
PSU undergraduate Darrin Lane has explored the best way to preserve coronal slices of human cerebrum in acrylic resin, and his early pilot efforts are definitely compelling! Stay tuned: Darrin is writing a post about his failures and successes, to make the process clearer for others wishing to create similar educational materials for neuroscience outreach…
We are particularly indebted, once again, to Mark Rutledge-Gorman of the Portland Alcohol Research Center (PARC) at OHSU, who ordered more crates of sparkly pipe cleaners and many essential boxes of brain-wrangling nitrile gloves…
LEARN MORE: NW Noggin Collaborators
In fact, during a busy day of public engagement, we went through a full TWENTY BOXES (100 gloves in each!) – that means ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE held our human brains from 10am – 5pm on Saturday, March 16th!
“I am a scientist already you know…”
And of course we made plenty of brain-related art!
LEARN MORE: NW Noggin STEAM Resources
We developed quite the neuroscience-inspired art gallery as the day progressed!
Tara Leake happily showed up with BRAIN COOKIES..!
And Noggin ordered plenty of Sparky’s Pizza to help fuel our volunteers!
Pizza fueled the afternoon at OMSI, with volunteers running a popular electrophysiology table, with multiple ways to demonstrate the electrical nature of information flow in the brain…
LEARN MORE: Brain Hacking is Electric!
Thanks to Kate Stout of the Oregon Brain Institute for organizing another successful Fair! And many, many, MANY thanks to our exceptional, hardworking Noggin outreach volunteers, who help make the Pacific Northwest a creative, arts-integrated powerhouse for public awareness of brain research – and brains!