Brain Awareness Week 2002 - continued

Visual Learning

At this station Dr. Jim Crandall helped us learn about how light can trick the brain.  First the group threw beanbags into a bucket.  Then they put on large glasses that changed the light that comes into the eye.  The glasses made the direction of the light alter. When we threw the beanbags they would always land to the left of the bucket.  Then we took the glasses.  Once again we missed the bucket.  This happened because we weren’t used to the new position of the light. This was an exciting activity and we discovered a lot.

Functional MRI

We learned from Ben Wallace that an MRI is a machine that takes pictures of your brain.  With this device you can see the”soft parts”of your brain.  This machine is a huge magnet. This “mock MRI”(shown below) is used to get little kids to stay still during a real MRI.  How they do this is pretty cool because if you stay still you can watch your favorite movie.  However, if you move the movie will shut off letting you know that you need stay still.  It was fun going into the mock MRI.  We enjoyed this station.

Optical Illusions

At this station we learned from Dr. Stephen Oross about how our brain tries to make sense out of things we see.  One of the experiments we did was to put a paper towel rolls up to one of your eyes and put the other hand next to the paper towel roll. We were able to see a hole right through our hand!  A lot of people liked the tricks on the computer.  It was interesting how your brain doesn’t agree with some of the things you see.  One of the tricks we saw on the computer was a picture of an old lady, but if you looked at her differently you could see a young lady. At this station we learned how optical illusions can trick your mind.

Chick Development

At this station Dr. Peter McCaffery showed us how baby chicks look inside in their eggs when they are kept in an incubator. We helped crack the egg open and looked at it under a microscope. We could see a lot --- a heart that was pumping with veins, a giant eyeball and a brain that was smaller than the eye. We had an interesting time in that room, and will never look at an egg in the same way again.

Brain Awareness Week 2002 Essay Contest

Following their visit to the Shriver Center during Brain Awareness Week 2002, Ms. LeiLanie D’Agostino’s entire 5^th grade class from the Brackett School in Arlington, Massachusetts (left) competed in an essay contest entitled "What I learned at the Shriver Center during Brain Awareness Week".  Jeremy Bingham proudly wears his 2002 BAW T-shirt as the 1st place winner (right).  Also pictured with their prizes are 2^nd place winner Jeffrey Lim, 3^rd place winner Heather Kolcigashi, 4^th place winner Lauren Adelman and 5^th place winner Alex Boonstra.