Where is NW Noggin?
Our innovative graduate and undergraduate art and neuroscience volunteers are Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) Juice award-winning developing experts in science communication, synapsing for science, and teaching in schools, theaters, museums, urban and rural communities, homeless youth centers, breweries, correctional facilities, Congress and bike shop pubs! For more information see NOGGIN BLOGGIN.NW Noggin is a locally sourced, 501(c)(3) ALL-VOLUNTEER shoestring nonprofit organization. Your tax-deductible contribution supports the purchase of sheep brains, pipe cleaners, electrodes and clay for innovative, arts-integrated outreach, and helps send volunteers from local universities (including Portland State University, OHSU, and other area institutions) to public school classrooms, conferences and free community events.
DONATE HERE!
LEARN MORE: Community Neuroscience: How to Build an Outreach Organization
NW Noggin: Art + Brains
Noggin mug winner in Astoria!
Noggin awarded grant support from PARC!
To Bounce Or Not To Bounce
Join us in Chile in *2027*!
In 2027 we'll return to Valparaíso, Chile, home of the Humboldt squid! 🦑⚡️🧠🎨😃 Just like in 2025, and 2023, we'll explore how neurons carry information, and how research in Chile (involving the squid’s giant fused axons) informed our understanding of the electrical signaling that links our experiences to the world. We’ll visit laboratories to examine the rich history and exciting present of research at the Universidad de Chile en Valparaíso, make art (including arpilleras, woven depictions of experience that help people express challenging memories and preserve them for accountability), and contribute to community engagement with Ciencia al Tiro, a local STEAM (STEM + Arts) outreach nonprofit.
LEARN MORE: LAS NEURONAS SON BACANES. LEARN MORE: Valparaiso - Arte y Cerebros en Chile LEARN MORE: ARTS AND BRAINS IN CHILE
Why do you study the brain?
Post by Madeline Ogle, Psychology undergraduate at Portland State University and NW Noggin outreach volunteer As the dark Washington sky barely hinted at the promise of a slightly brighter day, I checked in at the Fort Vancouver High School office with my fellow outreach volunteers. This was Friday of Finals…
It’s Just Like Riding a Bike…Except It’s Not!
Post by Liam Armstrong, high school senior at Pacific Crest Community School, avid cyclist, and lover of math and science. Liam approached NW Noggin this year with fascinating questions about why it was so difficult to adapt to a bicycle built to defy rider expectations. He first wanted to build…
What’s it like to research aging & neurodegeneration?
Post by Mikah Brandes, undergraduate at Portland State University, NIH BUILD EXITO scholar and NW Noggin volunteer LEARN MORE: Neurons Not Included My sister gifted me a coffee mug last year after my first term working in a research lab in fall of 2018. She had already been a research assistant…
Inspiration & Education!
A week before finals at Portland State and OHSU, our enthusiastic outreach volunteers gathered early at David Douglas High School to enjoy a full day of neuroscience research and art with around 200 curious students! LEARN MORE: Everything but guns Heather Roberts, a high school Social Studies teacher who also…
Everything but guns
“Morning comes whether you set the alarm or not” ― Ursula LeGuin High schoolers, teachers, staff and our brain-obsessed NW Noggin volunteers awoke before dawn on a cool, crisp December morning, all headed to David Douglas High School. David Douglas, named after a 19th century botanist from Scotland (and the…
Lakeside sits a ship
Post by Madison Cho-Richmond, undergraduate at Portland State University and NW Noggin outreach volunteer McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois was my boat for the week, offering waves of research posters, eddies of sciart, and strong currents of inspired neuroscience researchers and students like me. It’s a carnival cruise for the…
Being there means something
Post by Drew Sinclair, undergraduate student veteran at Portland State University and NW Noggin outreach volunteer Brains use energy Our brains require a lot of energy. Navigating, remembering, making decisions, responding to circumstances requires the coordinated activity of networks of linked brain regions, and the burning of sugar (glucose) to…
Memory, Poetry, Brains
Post written by New/Mixed media artist Kit S. Carlton & Ph.D. candidate Sydney Boutros from Behavioral Neuroscience at OHSU Noggin Talks are back! The crowd buzzed in anticipation of the night’s presentation, glasses clinked, murmurs echoed throughout the room, the enthusiasm fully palpable as NW Noggin’s Old Town Talks settled…
What about the glia?
“Look for the helpers.” –Fred Rogers Neurons get the limelight, typically, in college textbooks, courses and even quite often in pipe cleaner form – but there are billions of non-neural cells that contribute to our brain’s cellular community – the glia! LEARN MORE: Glia as architects of central nervous system…
Freedom @ Shahala
“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of education have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is…
What is outreach like?
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” ―Maya Angelou
Our Northwest Noggin undergraduate and graduate outreach volunteers are enthusiastic and informed, and regularly let knowledge serve by going places, making art, exploring brain research, sharing stories and listening to community questions and interests in urban and rural K-12 public schools, coffee shops, museums, correctional facilities, houseless youth nonprofits, research conferences, Congress and more! LEARN MORE @ What is outreach like?.