5 Brain Awareness Week Ideas (Apply Now to Get up to $1,250 in Grants!)

— Written by Jelena Ciric —

Second week of March is always a special time of year for brain buffs. That is when educators from around the world join in for neuroscience outreach in schools and local communities!

Money’s always scarce, but your organization doesn’t have to tap into its own funds. If you write up and submit a proposal within the next couple of weeks (through October 31), you may get up to $1,250 to fund your Brain Awareness Week (BAW) activities for next March. This year, the IBRO/Dana Foundation Grants Program was expanded by 60%, so your chances of winning are bigger than ever!

But where to begin? You don’t need to break your head over activity ideas. We have a lot of wildly popular, effective and customizable hands-on experiments that have already made many an appearance during previous BAWs. Or, if you prefer something new, you can always scour our blog for inspiration from our fellows and interns! All of our experiments were designed to be conducted in makeshift labs, classrooms or public spaces. Being attractive and appealing whether you’re reaching out to middle-schoolers, college students or the general public, they all stand for democratization of neuroscience.

But what if you can’t make the second week of March? No worries. You’re not in any way required to stick with the exact BAW dates (March 11-17, 2024), nor will it affect your chances of getting awarded. Do it whenever you want, as long as you use the official Brain Awareness Week branding.

5 Brain Awareness Week BYB Classics

The foremost reason why these experiments strike a chord with so many people is that they break down very complex and sophisticated concepts in a way that looks and feels lo-fi enough not to intimidate anyone. Being featured on TED doesn’t do them a disservice either!

Another reason why we chose them is that they don’t take a lot of time or equipment.

1. BAW All-Time Favorite: Human-Human Interface

What does it take to achieve control over another person’s arm so that it moves because you wanted it to move? In its essence, this is an experiment in advanced neuroprosthetics that’s cooked up for audiences as young as 5th grade!

A favorite activity to do with our community during #BrainAwarenessWeek is from @BackyardBrains. We (and the kids!) especially love setting up elementary school principals and teachers to demonstrate the human-human interface: https://t.co/HTgIWpyq5D #neuroscience @NGPMichigan pic.twitter.com/QJL8VTQDsm

— Michigan Neuroscience Institute (MNI) ? (@UM_MNI) March 16, 2022

BYB Neuroscience Goes to Penang, Malaysia

We’re ending the eventful year of 2022 grand style – by sending our gear on yet another trip across the world to further our #NeuroRevolution! This time, it was George Town in Penang, Malaysia, where school kiddos got to try their hands at our Claw.

The neuroscience booth was part of an exhibition funded by American Tech Corner-on-Wheels (ATCoW) and organised by Penang Science Cluster, specially designed for primary and secondary school students to spark their interest in STEM. Kudos to the ATCoW team, who have been to about 2 dozen schools and public events in 2022, impacting close to 10,000 students!

If you happen to be nearby, you can follow their FB Page and find updates on ATCoW here.

DIY Neuroscience and AI for All – Virtual Workshop by IBRO-LARC/PEDECIBA

Who says that hands-on approach doesn’t work in virtual space? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: science is doable, DIY-able, interactive, and it works online just as efficiently as it does in person!

Back in August 2020, the IBRO-LARC/PEDECIBA* “DIY Neuroscience and AI for all” workshop showed that the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t have to stand in the way of hands-on neuroscience. BYB founders, Drs. Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo, who also took part in the project, tell us that student attendants from Uruguay, Argentina, Panama, Colombia, Chile, Peru were super engaged and motivated. “I had concerns about a virtual conference at first, but all fears were put to rest once seeing it play out. The discussion, questions and feedback during my lecture was better than in-person,” says Greg.

In his lecture aptly titled “Neuroscience tools for the 99%”, he recounted the humble, bohemian beginnings of Backyard Brains over a decade ago, when he and Tim invented a $100 spike in their dorm room. Building a contraption from scratch and pitching the idea to the scientific community and the public are two different things, so they came up with a satirical narrative about a zombie apocalypse to attract people to their booth at the Society for Neuroscience conference. The rest is history!