"Explain Your Brain" is a guided tour for 5-8th grade students about how the brain works. "Explain Your Brain" includes both a multimedia assembly and hands-on exhibit station format available to students of teacher participants in the neuroscience institute, BrainU (sponsored by the University of MN and Science Museum of MN). In addition, teachers may utilize BrainTrucks, which contain materials and resources for neuroscience classroom instruction.

Assembly Program

The "Explain Your Brain" assembly uses audience demonstrations and activities to explore the regions of the brain and how they work. By actively participating in the assembly, students are able to connect different brain areas with different functions, see the ways nerve cells communicate with one another, and examine ways the brain perceives things and can be fooled.

The assembly program is suitable for group presentations of up to 400 students. The assembly uses optical and auditory illusions to pique student interest, the story of Phineas Gage to introduce functional localization and contemporary imaging techniques, a bean-bag toss by a student wearing prism glasses to illustrate neural plasticity, and the model synapse to highlight the cellular basis of learning and memory. Slides illustrating the story of a patient's operation for a brain tumor and recovery highlight the impact of scintific research on people's lives.

 Click here for examples of assembly program activities.

Exhibit Stations

The "Explain Your Brain" exhibit stations give students the opportunity to have one-on-one interaction with scientists, and to explore various aspects of their own perception and learning. 

The exhibits are divided into three sections: real brains,an EEG demonstration, and eight perception and memory activities. A worksheet in pdf format is available to guide the students through the stations. The hands-on activities illustrate concepts of specialized sensory receptors, receptive fields, desensitization, relative sensitivities, sensory-motor coordination, recall by grouping and the sensory, motor and associative integration necessary to perform a complex task.
Click here for examples of exhibit station activities.

Brain Trunks

The Brain Trunks provide teachers the materials and resources related to neuroscience classroom activites. They contain general resource materials including CD-ROMs, Newton's Apple videos about the brain and senses, age appropriate books about the brain, brain coloring books for reference pictures, brain molds, website resource listings, and all the materials necessary to perform the class activities each teacher chooses to present in his or her classroom.

Trunks are reserved by the teacher for a 2-3 week period and sent to the school via commercial delivery service. The trunks overcome the barriers of preparation time, funding, and content expertise needed by teachers to bring neuroscience resources into their classroom.
Click here for a list of contents and where to purchase items.

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