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
BioGifting brains
Bathing your brain @ Velo 🌲
Enter the Cerebral Wilderness @ Gallery 114 (12/1 & 12/10)
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
Zombie Brain Training @ P:ear :)
An enthusiastic squad of Noggin volunteers gathered early Saturday morning at P:ear, an extraordinary non-profit in downtown Portland that offers homeless and transitional youth a safe, warm and inviting space, high quality meals, and engaging volunteer programs in education, art and recreation (P:ear = Project: education, art, recreation)… From above (left…
Astoria Ales & Ideas: Your Brain in a Vortex @ the Fort George
Bill Griesar and Jeff Leake of Portland State University and NW Noggin recently kicked off the Clatsop Community College “Ales & Ideas” lecture series at the Fort George Brewery in Astoria on October 1. John Harkness, a new Ph.D. from OHSU, joined them with real human brains for audience members…
The Nature of Seeing @ the Portland Art Museum
NW Noggin is honored to work alongside the Portland Art Museum in developing interpretive materials, and gallery descriptions, for visitors to the upcoming “Seeing Nature” exhibit, opening this fall. More information on this “eye-opening” exhibit can be found below… SEEING NATURE: OCTOBER 10, 2015 – JANUARY 10, 2016 THE NATURE OF…
Creativity and Science
NW Noggin volunteers headed to Southeast Portland this afternoon, to enjoy rather deep and thoughtful discussions about brain development and behavior with engaged and enthusiastic middle school students at Portland Public’s Creative Science School… We were welcomed by Brandan McClain, a Language Arts teacher who helped arrange our visit, and made certain his students…
Transmitters, Pesticides & Drugs at HeLa High
We enjoyed an afternoon in an Advanced Physiology class at Vancouver’s HeLa High this afternoon, a STEM-focused public school named after Henrietta Lacks… We began by reviewing the electro-chemical nature of information flow in the nervous system. Bill went over resting and action potentials, while Jeff drew a cell membrane and various gated channels on…
Neural networks on network TV… :)
Today our intrepid Noggin volunteers crafted neurons out of pipe cleaners, demonstrated perceptual distortions with “drunk” goggles, and introduced brains to students on the WSU Vancouver campus… A KOMO TV news crew was there to film interviews with Noggin outreach coordinators and students. Here’s what they produced…
Washington congressional staff use their brains!
The 2015 Summer Outreach Program is over, but NW Noggin is still keeping active! We’re working on multiple projects that will be happening in the coming months, so stay tuned! Earlier this week NW Noggin was a part of the Washington State legislative staff tour at WSU-V. Legislative staff toured the…
Wait what? Your brain on art!
NW Noggin filmed an episode of “Wait What?,” hosted by Phillippa Pitts, a Kress Foundation Interpretive Fellow at the Portland Art Museum. Jeff Leake and Bill Griesar discuss how our brains respond to various aspects of art from the museum’s permanent collection…
2015 Summer Programs COMPLETE!
Our four Noggin outreach sites finished up this week with lessons, activities and treats! Check out what our talented and creative students from WSU Vancouver, PSU, the Pacific Northwest College of Art and OHSU collaboratively accomplished this summer in Portland and Vancouver… WSU/MESA program in Vancouver Sabin K-8 SUN program…
Summer 2015: Week 2 Complete!
Week 2 of our 2015 Summer Outreach Program is complete! Our participants had an action (potential) packed week of neuroscience and art integrated activities and lessons. To learn about the visual system, participants at Jason Lee created their own after-images! Our students with the MESA program got the…
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?.