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
Noggin returns to P:ear 🍐!
Multilingual Brains!
Correctional Connections
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
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……
Homelessness and the Brain
WHAT: Homelessness & the Brain @ p:ear WHERE: p:ear, 338 NW 6th Ave. Portland, OR 97209 WHEN: Thursday, October 19, 10:00am – 1:00pm (9:00am set up for presenters) In 2017, 4177 people in Portland have no permanent home, according to the latest biennial Point in Time count of those living on the streets or in…
Christina Williams: Making Connections Through NW Noggin
Post by Christina Williams, Noggin volunteer and WSU Vancouver senior undergraduate, and aspiring behavioral neuroscience researcher (PTSD) NW Noggin has tremendously enriched my undergraduate experience at Washington State University Vancouver, and has turned an otherwise ordinary academic experience into something far more rewarding and transformative. Noggin has connected me with a…
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?.