1996 Brain Awareness Week
Newspaper Article

Below is a typed copy of the article entitled "Using their brains" published by the Advocate.

Using their brains

Brackett School students tour Shriver Center

By Barbara Forster
Special to the Advocate

"This is cool!" "Awesome!" "It's really neat!"
Those exclamations filled the corridors of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center on Trapelo Road in Waltham last Friday as fifth-graders from Arlington's Brackett School toured the facility. Founded in 1969, the private, not-for-profit center focuses on improving the lives of people with developmental disabilities through training, service and research.

The class toured the facility in conjunctions with the first national Brain Awareness Week, May 12-18, and schoolwork.

"We studied the body, brain and behavior all year, but we used textbooks," explained teacher LeiLanie D'Agostino. "This is the ultimate follow-up to the curriculum.

"No pictures in books can come close to this," she added.

For two hours, 18 youngsters accompanied by parents and teachers participated in hands-on demonstrations involving genetics and the behavioral sciences. In the visual perceptions lab, students wearing glasses with red and green lenses took depth perceptions tests. Then during motions tests, they guessed at figures outlined by moving dots of light. Dr. Stephen Oross III, who led the "visual" tour, pointed out that before vision problems can be corrected, scientists first must understand "normal" vision functions. The "how" is the question that research scientists strive to answer.

"I think it's cool how the visual tests teach (scientists) about how people see," said 11-year-old Jessica Bell.

Via computer, the kids watched a cell nicknamed "Tarzan" swing from fiber to fiber carrying messages within the brain. Later, in the department of developmental neuroscience, they stared in amazement at the fragile beating heart of a 4-day-old embryonic chick.

In another lab, students held their breaths as a diamond-bladed knife sliced off transparent-thin microscopic layers of brain tissue. As the lights went off and an electron microscope enlarged the tissue 20,000 to 50,000 times its original size, the kids crowded around the work area produced a chorus of "Oohs" and "Ahs."

"That was really awesome," declared Becki Lijek, who, like most of the youngsters, was reluctant to leave the lab.

Smiling and laughing along with fascinated students, the scientists giving the demonstrations were having just as much fun.

"It's a great age to watch," remarked Peter McCaffery, a scientist at the center. "There's no cynicism yet, just pure interest."

"They have a very innocent curiosity and excitement," continued scientist Jim Crandall, who had invited the class to the center after four one-hour sessions in the Schoolroom earlier in the year. The school presentations on the brain and how it works had tow goals: to teach students about the brain and to raise awareness about science and basic research.

"We want to develop and appreciation for basic science research," added Crandall, "and it is easier to reach students before junior high because they haven't been turned off by science."

Development Officer Amy Kant noted that while basic research is often the source of "miracle" cures and treatments for disease, the general public knows little about it. "Basic research is patient, plodding work," she admitted.

Thus, this non-glamorous aspect of science is usually overlooked for potential career choices as well as funding. Inasmuch as funding has become a major concern recently as traditional government sources dry up, reaching out to publics young and old - the center had a second tour for adults the same afternoon - serves double duty.

Parent Deborah Cody feels the strategy is correct. "Seeing this is how you get people excited, because otherwise they can't relate to it," she said.

We're not trying to make everyone a scientist," stressed Crandall. "We just want them to have an appreciation for science."