WHAT: NW Noggin @ Sunnyside Environmental School

WHERE: Google Meet link coming soon for Noggin volunteers!

WHEN:
1. Thursday, April 22, 12:30 – 2:00pm (Pacific)
2. Friday, April 23, 12:30 – 2:00pm (Pacific)

We did it!

A crayon in Homer’s brain

3. Thursday, April 29, 12:30 – 2:00pm (Pacific)
4. Friday, April 30, 12:30 – 2:00pm (Pacific)

We’re going back to school!

Portland Public Schools is on a “hybrid” schedule, and we’ll meet virtually with 4th graders at Sunnyside Environmental School for four days in April! The first week (4/22 & 4/23) we’ll learn what kids already know and want to know about their brains, introduce ourselves, talk neuroscience research and discover how to make our own neurons and glia.

We’ll follow up week two (4/29 & 4/30) by sharing “found object” brain cells we make at home!

LEARN MORE: Pipe Cleaner and FOUND OBJECT Brain Cells!

SEE WHAT WE DID AT SUNNYSIDE BEFORE COVID 🦠

What about the glia?

COMMITTED VOLUNTEERS
1. Bill Griesar, NW Noggin/PSU/OHSU
2. Jeff Leake, NW Noggin/PSU
3. Jasmin Mabry, PSU
4. Melissa DeMoura, PSU
5. Magda Armendariz Sullivan, PSU
6. Kass Fitzgerald, PSU
7. Alex Heinrich, PSU
8. Melissa Sek, PSU
9. Roman Cimkovich, PSU

CHECK OUT THESE STUDENT QUESTIONS!

Stanley: I want to know about all the nerves in the brain
How does the brain affect activities like running?
How does the brain know your likes, interests, etc.?

Rome: I want to know about memories and dreams

Emma: How do dreams work? What does it have to do with memories?

Arlo: I want to know about the thinking part of the brain

Julian: How big or small the laughter part of your brain is

Bea: How does the brain process what it wants to do, and how does it know whether it is a good thing to do

Nadia: What are the different parts of the brain?

Eva: I am curious about memories and thoughts. How do we remember things? When you are learning something new, how exactly is your brain involved in the learning? HOW DO WE LEARN?

Zander: How do brains sense when the body gets hurt?

Kellen: How do the body and the brain communicate? How do the brain and our muscles, bones, etc.?

Eva: I am wondering about guilt – the feeling of feeling bad about something you’ve done; how is the brain involved in that?

Ames: Why is our limbic system so “fast-acting”? How many nerves are in our brains?

Archie: How come sometimes you have control over your dreams, and other times you don’t? Why do our brains look like mush, yet they are so complicated?

Arlo: What part of your brain is used the most? Why do humans have nightmares vs dreams sometimes? Is it because of something we’ve seen, or do they just happen?

Bea: Why do we dream?

Dexter: Do people with epilepsy (like me) have more dreams than people who don’t? How fast do you think it takes for people to process their dreams? What do you know about helping kids with epilepsy and reading? Why did you start studying the brain in the first place? What is the strangest thing you’ve learned in your careers? I feel most of my seizures near my mouth and I wonder if different kinds of seizures happen in different parts of the brain.

Dylan: How many emotions can the brain help you make? How many neurons do you have?

Elsie: I just want to learn more about HOW the brain does its work.

Emma: What would my emotion be if I had two bad things happening at once? What is the first thing you ever learned about the brain?

Ericka: Why are brains pink? Why do they have so many grooves in them?

Julian: If you’re asleep, do both halves of the brain go asleep? In the middle of the night, do the halves switch?

Kiernan: How big, exactly, is my brain?

Marina: What happens to your brain, when it gets bruised? How does your brain decide if something tastes good?

Nadia: Are all of our ideas a bunch of existing things, put together?

Rome: When we have dreams – what makes us dream about certain things in particular? Is it all memory-based?

Seb: How big is the prefrontal cortex?

Sophie: I still don’t understand HOW a memory gets stored. Also, what decides if you like a certain taste or smell, or not?

Stanley: How much can your whole brain process in a day? When or why does our brain go on “autopilot”? What is the most helpful part of the brain?

Zander: How much smarter is a human from a dinosaur? How does a brain develop intelligence?