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
Accumbens in Astoria
Tennis Balls & Brains
Join us in Chile in 2025!
Please join us SUMMER 2025 in Valparaíso, Chile - the home of the Humboldt squid! 🦑⚡️🧠🎨😃 We'll explore how neurons carry information, and how research in Chile (involving the squid’s giant fused axons) led to 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 through Ciencia al Tiro, a local STEAM (STEM + Arts) outreach nonprofit. We may even create a public mural celebrating famed neurology patient Phineas Gage, who lived for several years after his infamous accident - and drove a stagecoach - in the city of Valpo!
LEARN MORE: LAS NEURONAS SON BACANES. APPLY HERE (PSU): Valparaiso - Arte y Cerebros en Chile APPLY HERE (NON-PSU): ARTS AND BRAINS IN CHILE
Women in Science (& Art!)
If you were asked to draw a scientist, who would you draw? LEARN MORE: Recognizing Ms. Frizzle’s Own Magic For children in the 1960’s and 1970’s, fewer than 1% drew pictures of women. For those asked in studies conducted from 1985 – 2016, this rose to an average of 28%. Yet the youngest kids (ages…
Brains are xumxum @ Willamina
“There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.” –Ursula LeGuin Another road trip! We rose early, loaded our new artist-designed and built “Arc of the Brain Event” cart into the Subaru, grabbed coffee in McMinnville and…
Lyubov Bachinskaya: Wait – what’s a neuron?
Post written by Portland State University undergraduate Lyubov Bachinskaya Spending time with others involved in NW Noggin was a great experience for me and helped validate the direction I want to go in my life. This is such an exciting option for undergraduates to explore and get involved in even…
Basal ganglia @ Beaumont!
“There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected.” – Tim Berners-Lee We’ve had so many outreach events…
Jeff Leake wins Arte Laguna Prize!
Our own Jeff Leake, co-founder and Arts Coordinator for NW Noggin, an Instructor in University Studies and Psychology at Portland State University, a Teacher Advisory Council member for the Portland Art Museum and an accomplished artist and co-owner of Portland’s Gallery 114 has won a prestigious international art award known…
Michael Deveney: Little hands holding brains
Post by Michael Deveney, Noggin volunteer from Portland State University First of all, the OHSU Brain Fair at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) was AWESOME! I had a blast and I look forward to helping more in the future. Thank you for this opportunity. LEARN MORE: Putting…
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,…
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!.