Brain Blast Event Teaches Local Students Neuroscience
What are brain lobes? How do they impact sensation and perception? What about brain cells? Matter of fact, what even is the brain?
These questions and more were explored by dozens of local kids and community members on Friday at St. Lawrence University's annual Brain Blast, which featured several interactive, hands-on exhibits focused on brain function as well as neuroscience research being conducted on campus.
“Brain Blast is a public event that is offered so our University can participate in the national Brain Awareness Week, which happens annually in March,” said Associate Professor of Biology Lorraine Olendzenski, who helped put together the event along with student volunteers from the biology honorary society Beta Beta Beta, the psychology honorary society Psi Chi, and CSTEP.
“It’s important because lots of young kids in our community may not have exposure to scientists or to scientific information, so those kids can come here and work with undergrads studying science and meet with professors.”
Olendzenski said local primary and secondary students and St. Lawrence students enjoy symbiotic benefits from the interaction.
“The younger kids really look up to the college students, and the college students love working with younger kids and sharing what they know,” she says.
Julia Goodwin ’25, president of TriBeta who helped organize the festival, echoed that sentiment. “Brain Blast allows local kids to learn some science and to look up to practicing scientists, and the St. Lawrence students jumped at the opportunity to talk to them about what they’ve been studying,” she said.
In one of the exhibits, Nela Chestojanova ’27, Madeline Musterait ’25, and Agata Faran ’26 showed people a rat in a cage trained to press a button to release a snack for itself.
Another exhibit used virtual reality to show people dinosaurs from long ago.
Other tables had activities about brain functions related to smell, sensation, and emotions. Kids were able to build a neuron, make a brain hat and use microsopes to look at nematodes, neurons, and the bacteria in kombucha.
There was even an exhibit led by Jackson Spence ’25 and Etta Leugers ’25 which showed a real sheep’s brain that was bisected so people could inspect it.
Spence said learning about the brain is necessary in order to learn about anything else.
“Everything you have ever known or seen or done is because of your brain,” he said, “and I think that’s really cool.”
