It takes a practiced hand to be able to take complex, abstract ideas, and describe them in simple ways. In many ways, this is the job of educators. We take it upon ourselves to grapple with abstractions and find novel connections, comparisons, and metaphors to help others understand a new idea.
Brod Bagert, who we met at this most recent NSTA, has a fun and effective approach to teaching students about science. Citing that dramatic forms help students understand and retain new information about Science better, Brod has written a series of poems, plays, and monologues which illuminate the intricacies of different scientific fields in funny and heartwarming ways.
I wanted to share this poem, reproduced with permission from Brod’s book, Systematic Me, which will teach you, in surprising depth, about the role of neurotransmitters in sending information throughout the body.
The Open Hardware Symposium and our Exhibit Generated Excitement, Smiles, and Inspiration
Every year, Backyard Brains reaches farther and farther with our quest to spread DIY neuroscience, and this year, we hopped the pond to the largest neuroscience conference in Europe! Our experiments were a hit at the Forum of European Neuroscience (FENS) held in Berlin, Germany from July 7-11, 2018. Hosted by the German Neuroscience Society, the FENS conference brought together some of the greatest minds into the CityCube Berlin convention center for a week of brain-pumping excitement. Beginning with a presentation at the “Open Hardware Summit,” Backyard Brains set up shop for four days and sincerely WOWed hundreds of visitors. Will, our resident BYB mouthpiece, collected some social media highlights of the experience.
Managed to snap a few of the human demos from @BackyardBrains#openhardware at #FENS2018. Muscles controlling LEDs, robotic claw and then another human arm! Such great insights from approaching neuroscience education in this way. pic.twitter.com/KjgPtA3cBp
This was BYB’s first year attending the conference and we think we made a bit of a splash… Dr. Gage’s talk at the Open Hardware Summit generated a lot of excitement, which resulted in a lot of visits to our exhibit!
Following the caffeine drought of the first day (Seriously only one coffee kiosk in three halls? Thanks CityCube…) we found the energy to keep our neurons firing, doing demos and talking neurosci with all the incredibly passionate attendees at the show.
Fan Favorite for #SciComm:
Human-Human-Interface
If we had to pick a best in show, our Human-Human-Interface was tweeted and tagged over and over again #SCICOMM.
Featured in a Viral TED talk (Over 8M views) given by our co-founder, the Human-Human-Interface brings the cutting edge of Neuroscience to your classroom. But there is more to it than just one demonstration! Priced at $260, the Human-Human-Interface also allows you to do Arduino projects, Muscle Physiology labs, and independent Neuroscience Research – just see this example from a 12th grader’s research project!
A Neuroscientist’s Social Media Game is Fire…
But we weren’t the only ones showing off our experiments! Social Media was ablaze with @BackyardBrains tags as attendees and their colleagues shared videos of our experiments with their networks. We are a collective which prizes citizen science and grassroots, social-sharing of neuroscience like this is what we live for!
Felt like a kid at the @BackyardBrains booth at #FENS2018@FENSorg#FENSVideo today controlling my friend’s muscle activity with the electrical impulses generated by my brain! Affordable and awesome Neuroscience for undergrads, this guys are great… pic.twitter.com/dcGviXwODp
Go check out @BackyardBrains at #FENS2018 and their demos.
In the video one person is controlling the other person’s movement through electric signal picked up by skin electrodes ???
Super cool #SciComm gadgets! pic.twitter.com/i5h4ePRmDS
We had a lack of tables, so we had to get creative…very DIY, very on-brand. We’ll call it an intentional design choice…. We are so grateful t0 everyone who paid us a visit and rolled up their sleeves for science, and we hope you keep Backyard Brains in mind for the future for any of your #SciComm, Outreach, K12 or Undergraduate Neuroscience Needs! Feel free to email us at hello@backyardbrains.com with any questions, comments, or new ideas!
