Where is NW Noggin?
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!
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Putting the brains in Brain Fair!
We enthusiastically returned to one of the nation’s largest Brain Fairs on Saturday at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) to continue our vigorous efforts at brain awareness with THREE long tables piled high with pipe cleaners, jars of ink, sketch pads, electrodes, Mindflex Duels, formalin-fixed human and other…
Hallucinations @ HeLa High
We love visiting with Susie Ridgeway, a Human Anatomy and Physiology teacher, and her curious students at Henrietta Lacks High School in in the Evergreen Public School system near PeaceHealth hospital in the suburbs of Vancouver. We’ve been dropping by with brains, art and our Noggin volunteers for several years… (We also…
Tres Escuelas en un Día!
Oregon is beautiful! One of the great advantages of leaving campus for outreach beyond the urban core is meeting extraordinary students, teachers and staff, and exploring stunning, often Tolkien-like landscapes of the Pacific Northwest… During this season of Brain Awareness, we’ve set ambitious outreach goals, and on a glorious March…
Black Art, School & Dreams: Exquisite corpse @ Velo
“It’s about reimagining icons and perceptions of what is beautiful—and who is beautiful.” –Elia Alba Come with me, now I need you (2007), by Mickalene Thomas Brains thrive and develop in distributed networks, linking rich nodes of cortical gray matter through propagating axonal threads. This process requires risks and consequences,…
Ten Ways to Support the Arts (& Science!)
“To be creative means to connect” –Nawal El Saadawi NW Noggin was thrilled and honored to receive an award on behalf of our extraordinary community outreach volunteers at the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) Juice breakfast ceremony at the Portland Art Museum! LEARN MORE: RACC Announces the 2018 Juice Honorees Juice is…
High energy Hosford: Tumors, music & drugs!
Another merry band of volunteer neuroscience educators arrived in southeast Portland this morning, eager to make art, show brains and answer questions from 6th graders at Hosford Middle School! We’re fast approaching Brain Awareness Week, an annual celebration of high energy (noradrenergic?) neuroscience outreach initiated by the Dana Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization that supports…
High Desert Noggins: Brains & baby goats!
What is science communication? How do we effectively talk with each other, and learn? In this season of brain awareness, we know from lived experience, extensive outreach – and brain research – that taking risks, including others, going places where established institutions don’t engage, listening to stories and making art…
Trickster Brains @ Shahala
White Matter on Wy’East
Wy’East is the resonant Wapato tribal name for Oregon’s tallest mountain, currently snow-capped Mount Hood, re-named by white settlers after a British Admiral who both fought against the United States – and never set foot in the Pacific Northwest… LEARN MORE: 7 Northwest Mountains Named For White Men LEARN MORE: KEEPER OF THE FIRE (Tale…
Are brains edible?
Post by Denesa Oberbeck, Ph.D. Senior Research Associate, Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, OHSU Another early start for our volunteers, who brought their brains (plus extras!) and knowledge to 6th graders at Shahala Middle School – beginning at 7:45 am! LEARN MORE: Noggins in Nod, The science of sleep We’ve been to Shahala…
Synapsing in San Diego
“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 AMAZING volunteers organized the largest all ages Art & Neuroscience Festival in the Pacific Northwest! We offered live bands, science-inspired art, neuroscience research presentations, and the chance to ask questions and examine real brains! The fifth annual Noggin Fest helped send more young scientists and artists to the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego - and into San Diego Unified Public Schools! LEARN MORE @ Brains Beyond SfN!.