By Michelle Jaffee; photos by Jackie Hart
One by one, the teenagers bent their heads and peered into the laboratory microscope.
Mouths agape, eyes wide, they took in cells from a human brain.
In celebration of Brain Awareness Week, the McKnight Brain Institute welcomed 35 teenage homeschool students and 40 more ages 7-12 on Tuesday for lab tours, brain-related crafts and a Q&A with a working scientist.
Among new stops this year was UF’s Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease, where investigators study Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, ALS and other disorders. The microscope sample they viewed there belonged to the UF Neuromedicine Human Brain and Tissue Bank.
“For the kids to be able to see something like this, I think it shows the collaborative nature of research and something that they also find really interesting and cool — being able to look at a human brain,” said Jose Torrellas, a doctoral student in neuroscience and co-chair of UF’s Brain Awareness Week events this year.
Across the world each March, Brain Awareness Week events are held to raise awareness of the importance of brain research. At UF, activities are run by graduate and undergrad students from the North Central Florida Society for Neuroscience. Later this month, the volunteers will bring their presentations out into the community, reaching up to 1,200 K-12 children at 13 area schools.
During Tuesday’s homeschool visit, new activities this year included a tour of the lab of Freddyson Martínez-Rivera, Ph.D., and a research showcase by graduate students Zach Simon, Rachel Gunraj and Alexandra Reid.
Meanwhile, the younger group — coming back for the first time since the pandemic — were led in making crafts including colorful hats showing brain regions and “neuron” pipe cleaners for hands-on learning.
“I love being able to give them unique learning opportunities,” said Shirley Campen, who accompanied her sons Alexander, 10, and Cooper, 13. “It’s one thing to read about something in a book, and it’s another to hear about it from the people who are doing this work.”
And hear about it they did.
During an engaging, one-hand-up-after-another session with MBI scientist Michelle Bedenbaugh, Ph.D., in the MBI’s DeWeese Auditorium, the younger students seemed as if they couldn’t get enough.
“Why did you want to become a scientist?” one asked.
“How far do neurons travel in the brain?” asked another.
And the favorite question of Emely Gazarov, UF’s Brain Awareness Week chair this year:
“How do neurons change when we age?”
“It was really awesome to see the kids ask such advanced questions,” said Gazarov, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience.
“They’re the next generation of scientists that can answer those questions that are still unknown.”
Sponsors of UF’s Brain Awareness Week are: the McKnight Brain Institute, the UF Department of Neuroscience, UF’s Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory Clinical Translational Research, UF’s Brain Injury, Rehabilitation and Neuroresilience Center (BRAIN) and UF’s Breathing Research and Therapeutics Center (BREATHE).
