Brain Awareness Week 2010

Saturday March 13th, 2010 : 9am - 5:30pm
Sunday March 14th, 2010: 9am - 5:30pm

Brains On the University Mall

Brain Awareness Week is an international initiative to advance public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research.
This year we took advantage of a wonderful opportunity for neuroscience outreach that was offered by the fortuitous timing of the UA Book Festival, which was held on the UA Mall on March 13th and 14th. Last year the Festival attracted 50,000 people over 2 days, and this year's event was bigger and better. This year, Bio5 has put together a Science Pavilion, and we had a spot in it for a "Brain Works" exhibit.
The booth had a variety of activities designed to be attractive to people from little to adult, including prism glasses and visual adaptation, a brain zoo including a human brain, a human spinal cord (cauda equina) and a whale brain, a taste-vs-smell jelly bean game, some somatosensory tests, a hands-on test of your reflexes, a kid corner with coloring and make-your-own neuron activities and our signature eat-a-brain jello-station. The booth had some reading materials from the Dana Foundation and the SFN, and a video showing the cool neuroscience research we do on campus. We had about 20 volunteers helping this year, and we estimate that more than 600 people stopped by our stations in the course of the two days.

> We were featured in UA now on March 11th.
> KOLD, Channel 13th had a small feature on us as part of their weather report.
> Our chapter was showcased on the SFN website (or see a copy here)
> A slide show of the current research done on campus can be found here. (you need the free Flash Player). Or in PDF format.
> Pictures of the event can be found here!

Special thanks to Lynne Oland who helped coordinate, organize and staff all the stations! Thanks to all the volunteers: Chris Adams, David Andrew, Nadia Corral-Frias, Kim Edelman, Erika Eggers, Andrea Hartzell, Bethany Jones, Aimen Kasabeh, Thabelo Khoboko, Christopher Laine, David Lyttle, Sara Lewis, Michelle Magana Mendoza, Nate McMullen, Mike Miller, James Phillips-Portillo, Benjamin Pope, Ann Revill, Aaron Tesch, Patrick Williams, Bethanie Wright, David Yokum. Many thanks to the staff of the Department of Neuroscience (Jennifer Lawrence), Bio5 (Daphne Gilman, Stacey Forsyth), our friends at the Flandrau (Jennifer Fields) and all the volunteers from these entities.

This year's event was sponsored by Bio5. With support from The Dana Foundation: Brain awareness week

Lynne Oland and Jean-Marc Fellous