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AFor BAW, The Reign of the Brain hosted a 2-day event during the week of 3/15-3/21 to celebrate the nervous system. We explored a brief overview of the nervous system (which you can follow along using the slides attached below), and we learned from guests Dr. Gillian Hue, who talked about behavioral biology and neuroethics, and from Dr. Theanne Griffith, who explained how our ears work and read aloud from one of her books: The Magnificent Makers: Brain Trouble. To watch how to do some of Dr. Griffith's activities and to find ways to check out her books, please visit her website: https://www.theannegriffith.com/. Here, you will see an example of the bake-a-brain activity that is just one of many that Dr. Griffith has created and details more on her website. Additionally, Dr. Hue provided a wonderful website (https://www.brainfacts.org/) where you can go to learn even more about the brain! Also, I have attached directions on how to build your own 3-D model of a neuron, try it out! Finally, although we did not have time to play this during our session, since we had loads of fun and interesting discussions about topics such as sensation, sleep, and more, here is a link to a Gimkit to test all of your brain knowledge: https://www.gimkit.com/view/604d2e7e070e1500224631d4. Thank you to everyone who attended our BAW events, and for those of you who weren't able to make it, try out some of the activities listed above. I guarantee they'll be worth your while! 
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Happy Halloween! Celebrate by trying out this brain-themed escape room, and make sure to let me know how long it took you to finish! 
 The last stop on our journey is the hypothalamus! Fun fact: it got its name from the fact that it is located under the thalamus (hypo- is a prefix that means under or beneath). The hypothalamus's main function is homeostasis: keeping your body in prime conditions for function. You've probably heard that a healthy human's body temperature is supposed to be 98.6° degrees Fahrenheit. Your hypothalamus has to make sure that your body temperature is as close to that temperature as possible. This means that if you are hot, the hypothalamus will tell your sweat glands to activate so that the release of sweat will cool you down. If you are cold, the hypothalamus sends messages to your muscles to tell them to make you shiver in order to make you warmer. The hypothalamus is also important for hormone regulation. Ever notice how when you are physically active, your heart rate is faster than when you aren't and that after you stop being physically active, your heart rate slows down to its resting rate? This phenomenon is thanks to your hypothalamus! Check out this extremely interesting resource provided by PBS to get a better understanding of how maintaining homeostasis takes managing many different systems:
https://nj.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.reg.bodycontrol/body-control-center/  Next on our trip throughout the limbic system is the thalamus! The thalamus is mainly in charge of regulating and relaying sensory and motor information between the body and the cerebral cortex. This allows information that our senses detect and information about how we move our bodies to be processed. It also is why we are able to "tune out" things that we sense if we think they are not that important; the thalamus helps to filter out sensory and motor information that we don't need to process fully. The structure of the thalamus allows it to compartmentalize what kind of information it is dealing with because there are concentrations of neurons in different parts of the thalamus that are tasked with different functions. As a part of the limbic system, the thalamus is also important for regulating your consciousness (ability to be awake) and feelings of pain. This week's activity is more of a challenge than an activity. Here it is: I challenge you to keep a journal for a week. Write down everything that you feel (physical and emotional) and what you were doing when you were feeling that way. Also, pay attention and record at least 5 times when you caught yourself tuning something out (you might realize that you are tuning out way more information than you thought you were!). This challenge is meant for you to recognize that your thalamus does A LOT for you in making sure that you only process what you "need" to process. Even then, it is still processing a lot of things, and you will notice that when you are struggling to write down everything. By the end of the week, though, you might find yourself enjoying journaling because it can feel relieving to write everything down (at least it is for me). Let me know how this challenge goes in the comments below, and look out for the last part of the limbic system soon!   Next on our trip throughout the limbic system is the amygdala! A fun fact about the amygdala: its name originates from the fact that it looks like an almond, and almond in Greek sounds like amygdala! The amygdala's main purpose is to control your emotions. Of those emotions, the amygdala especially deals with your feeling of fear. Many studies have been conducted to evaluate what happens when the amygdala of rodents and nonhuman primates is removed, and they have concluded that animals without an amygdala do not feel fear. This, although it might sound cool to not be afraid of anything, can be very dangerous, and hopefully these studies help you to appreciate all that your amygdala does for you! When we learned about the hippocampus, I mentioned that the hippocampus connects emotions and memories when storing them, and the amygdala helps in this process. Although I don't have any fun activity for you on the amygdala, I do challenge you to read an interesting study on the amygdala. A really great website that you can find studies that have been written for kids is here: https://kids.frontiersin.org/. Check it out, and comment below something new that you have learned about the amygdala!
 The first part of the limbic system that we will be looking at is the hippocampus. The hippocampus is largely important for memory conversion. This means it is important for converting working and explicit memory (also known as short term memory) into implicit memory (also known as long term memory). The hippocampus also works with the amygdala (another part of the limbic system) in order to relate emotions with memory. Think of the first time you ever fell off of your bike. Most people in that situation probably skinned their knees or elbows and reacted by crying to express pain. The hippocampus makes sure that when it stores that memory, it attaches the feelings of pain and frustration to the memory. This emotional "tag" is very important in memory, and it is all thanks to the collaboration of the parts of the limbic system!
In the spirit of the hippocampus and its main duty of memory making, why not try a fun memory matching game?! Below is a button that links to a fun memory game that has to do with some of the many parts of the nervous system. See how well you can remember where all of the cards are! Also, make sure to look out for the definitions of each of the terms that pops up once you correctly match a pair. Have fun, and let me know how many flips it took you to finish the game in the comments below!! All of your amazing projects inspired me to create a few of my own! See if you can find all of the words in this word search based on important vocabulary words we learned during the program, and comment your best time (my best is 4:03).  Here's a link to the online version (it may look different than this one): https://thewordsearch.com/puzzle/1348092/nervous-system-word-search/ Click on the "Read More" link to see the answers!
Wow! I was blown away by these amazing cumulative projects that students submitted to present during our last session. This project allowed students to explore anything related to the nervous system that they are interested in. By keeping the project open-ended, students were able to learn further about topics they are fascinated by and were able to practice their research, creative, and presenting skills. These students have continued to impress me throughout these past 6 weeks, and I cannot thank them enough for all of their excitement and participation throughout the program. Good luck in your continued learning, and please reach out to me if you ever have any questions! Below, you will find a YouTube video that is a compilation of the projects from the series. Please feel free to like and share the video so that more people can see and acknowledge all of these students' hard work! Thank you, and enjoy! |
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