New educational resources from Society for Neuroscience

Recently in my email I received the first edition of an e-Newsletter from the Society for Neuroscience titled "Brain Awareness Headlines". This four-times-a-year publication will strive to provide information - news, resources, etc. - to those interested in neuroscience education. The newsletter seems to stem from SfN's flagship educational vehicle, "Brain Awareness Week", which I helped FA to participate in last year by speaking about the brain and the importance of neuroscience research at a school-wide assembly. To learn more about Brain Awareness Week and some of the educational outreach opportunities that the SfN provides, go to www.sfn.org/baw.

While "Brain Awareness Headlines" is itself a new resuorce, the first edition highlights "NERVE", another new educational resource, and one that is targeted specifically at the K-12 audience. NERVE is an acronym that stands for Neuroscience Education Resources Virtual Encycloportal (nice...), and it serves to organize by theme a variety of digital neuroscience education resources from all around the Internet. Some of the resources are "flat" printouts, while others are interactive and/or animated. The resources included in NERVE can be limited by the intended audience, which includes students at different grade levels as well as teachers.

---
As an aside, it recently occurred to me that I took my first undergraduate course in Neuroscience - Intro to Neuroscience at Brandeis with Dr. Eve Marder - at this time of year a full 10 years ago! In researching this article, I happened to discover that Dr. Marder is the President of the Society for Neuroscience this year -- congratulations! I'm sure I wasn't the best student in my class in Fall '98, but her presentation and discussion of the subject inspired my further study and solidified the brain as a central point of interest throughout my professional and educational development. And, of course - thanks for the chocolate before each test -- it's a tradition that I've passed on to many of my own students - along with the requisite neuroscientific justification ;-)