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.
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LEARN MORE: Community Neuroscience: How to Build an Outreach Organization
NW Noggin: Art + Brains
The Trickster in Bone
Here We Are in our NW Noggins!
The humanity of science
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.
Moon Hooch as Mind Minister
Post written by graduate Noggin volunteer Brittany Alperin “Music can minister to the minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorry, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.” –William…
Changing Brain Waves of Depression
“I felt a funeral in my brain, And mourners, to and fro, Kept treading, treading, till it seemed That sense was breaking through.” – Emily Dickinson Depression proved a compelling topic for our latest NW Noggin presentation at Velo Cult, with a bar-estimated 200 community members gathering to connect, engage and learn…
Blue Mountain Brains!
On a dry and splendid spring afternoon, fifteen enthusiastic Noggin volunteers headed east for our second “synaptic community connection” in the inland Pacific Northwest… We’d made terrific connections with schools in Davenport, Washington during Brain Awareness Week in March, and were subsequently approached by the Northeast Oregon Area Health Education Center (NEOAHEC) in La Grande to answer…
Una sinapsis con Sitton
Post by Jessica Patching-Bunch, Noggin Resource Council member for Communications with language edits by Andrea Anaya from Portland State Neuroscience Club. Llegamos temprano a Sitton Elementary; una escuela primaria ubicada en el vecindario de St. Johns en el norte de Portland. Fuimos 14 voluntarios de PSU, OHSU y WSU… LEARN…
Lunchtime learning @ Jeff!
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control…, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform…by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional…
NIH Noggins @ OR MESA!
Post and pictures by Jessica Patching-Bunch, Noggin Resource Council member for Communications NW Noggin joined in the fun at Portland State University’s Oregon MESA Day for area students interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) pathways. The third floor Smith Memorial Ballroom was filled with eager young minds ready to…
Depolarization @ the Doug Fir
Exhilarated (and a little exhausted!) from the Society for Neuroscience Oregon/Southwest Washington Chapter meeting, we headed next to Portland’s subterranean Doug Fir Lounge, where the decor was decidedly cortical! And woodsy! And welcoming! We were there to hear the band Moon Hooch with Noggin volunteers Brittany Alperin from Behavioral Neuroscience at OHSU, and…
Myelin @ McMenamin’s!
Scientists, post-docs, graduate students, a healthy contingent of bicycling undergraduates from Portland State University, a high school student, and one brain-savvy artist arrived at McMenamin’s Edgefield in Troutdale last week to attend the annual Society for Neuroscience Oregon & Southwest Washington Chapter meeting, and share posters, talks and research… As it’s Bike Challenge month at both…
Noggin awarded grant support from PARC!
The Portland Alcohol Research Center (PARC) is one of Noggin’s top collaborators, helping to purchase the sheep brains, pipe cleaners, electrodes, clay and crayons that innovative, successful and low cost arts-integrated STEM outreach efforts thrive on in public schools… We also share our Noggin volunteers with PARC’s own efforts to reach kids and…
A Synapse with Sitton
Sitton Elementary is a unique educational community in Portland Public Schools with diverse students, including many English language learners and those with Individual Education Programs (IEPs) and special needs in regular classrooms, as well as “co-teachers” helping everyone engage… LEARN MORE: Educator collaboration keeps all students involved at Portland elementary “Sitton Elementary……
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!.