The Columbia Brainiacs

MORE NEURONS!

2009-11-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

NEURONS!

2009-11-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

Brain Dissection

2009-02-09T14:32:00.001-08:00

We did the brain dissection at long last! Our students earned it: they have learned and mastered the anatomy of the brain, the anatomy of the neuron, and the basic functions of different brain regions. After going over safety, anatomical terms of location, and the names of different cuts/sections you can make in the brain, we gave each student one sheep's brain and led them through the dissection. See pictures below!

Our First Lesson

2008-12-22T23:39:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from our first lesson. We taught the students about general brain anatomy and neurons, then gave them lots of pipecleaners for them to make their own neurons - complete with cell bodies, dendrites and axons.

This is a picture with Evelyn and Saroja on the left and the students being creative and making their own unique neurons. In case you were wondering, there is a cantaloupe on the table because we were using different kinds of fruits to compare different brain sizes - the human brain is about the size of a grapefruit.

Note part of our model brain on the table in the foreground and the projector we use to show different colored diagrams to help with our lesson.

Our First Post

2008-12-22T23:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our blog!
We are a group of undergraduate students at Columbia University in New York city passionate about science and eager to bring this passion to younger students around the city. We want to show them that science can be an exciting and engaging topic but also one that is very relevant and important to their daily lives.
We started a pilot neuroscience outreach program in February 2008, at the Community Health Academy in Washington Heights, for 6th and 7th graders. During the spring semester we visited the school every other Friday for 2 hours to play games, teach basic concepts in neuroscience and to perform cow eyes dissections. We were thrilled to see that the students were very receptive to our fun and open way of teaching but that they also learned a great deal about the brain and how it works.
The past fall semester we have gone back to the Community Health Academy every Friday to teach our expanded and improved program to a new set of 15 students.
And next semester we look forward to continuing with the same group of kids and building on the knowledge they have gained.
None of this would have been possible without the help of Evelyn Roman-Lazen who has provided us with funding and curriculum support. And we thank Mariuxi Luna of Community Health Academy for sharing her wonderful students with us.
We are also grateful for the support of Marcia Sells in the Office of Community Affairs and Ann McIver of Morningside Alliance.