Post by Andrea Rano, NIH BUILD EXITO undergraduate at Portland State University
NW Noggin was invited to return to the Helen Gordon Child Development Center at PSU last week.
LEARN MORE: Meet your brain cells!
We had plenty of curious and enthusiastic Portland State undergraduate volunteers, including Bharani Nallamala, Krystal Khan Nguyen, Alex Heinrich, Britta Harbury, Kira Rosen, Bina Anvari and Levi Banks.
We were able to spend some time with children from two classrooms that morning. After introducing ourselves the Ladybug class was immediately drawn to the skull in the cage. They pointed to structures and intuitively asked questions about the function of different parts of the skull in Bill’s hand.
The previous day I had been to the Ladybug classroom doing a “philosophy for children” lesson plan. We had read about Frog and Toad being brave. It was a pleasant surprise to see some of the children talk about being brave when they decided to examine the real brains we had brought for them.
“I am being brave”
“What are the lines inside the head?”
“What is the hole at the bottom for (the bottom of the skull)?”
“To me the brain felt squishy and sticky” ~ Nico
“The back part of the brain looks like a heart” – Naahid
“I liked the tiny brain (ferret) because it had a trunk” – Ryland
“I liked the balls (cell bodies) on the neurons” – Aucky
A few students from the Dragonfly room came after. This group was about a year older and included my son. Because he has joined me at a few NW Noggin events he had some good background knowledge about the brain, and it was fun to see him share that with his classmates. A couple of the Dragonflies spent the most of their time making prints with Jeff using materials we had gathered from outside.
MAKE YOUR OWN BRAIN CELL PRINTS: Gel print neurons and glia
Some quotes from the Dragonflies:
“I am a scientist” – Amarii
“Some neurons are long, long, long!”
“Those are the teeth!”
We really enjoyed being able to spend time with the little brains and look forward to returning soon. Thank you for welcoming us back to Helen Gordon!