I thought that for my fifth blog, instead of continuing on with my neuroscience research article, I thought it would be the perfect time to start talking about other things that are going on in my life right now such as preparing for the first meeting of the Brain Bee for this year. Last year, I created my own competitive neuroscience club that was centered around learning about neuroscience and then going on to compete in the Brain Bee competition. I thought I’d just take a moment to plug that our informational meeting and our first meeting of this year is going to be on this upcoming Thursday, November 17th in room 201 right after school. If you’re interested in learning more about medicine or neuroscience, definitely come check us out! We do a ton of cool stuff that I’m going to talk about for the rest of this blog post, and the more dedicated people we have involved, the more activities and things we can participate in and accomplish this year. If by any chance you are interested in joining then please fill out the following Google form to receive future updates: https://forms.gle/XA6KkQr2bvhtUHjN7 

Last year, I created weekly presentations that were based on our BrainFacts textbook that I would then go ahead and teach to our members during meetings. I also made and compiled a bunch of different resources that everyone could use to help them prepare for the competition like notes and example questions and whatnot. One of the biggest feelings of pride I have from last year is that I managed to pull together a little mini-lab for our members where we all got to dissect and look at sheep brains while we were learning their anatomy and comparing them to human brains. I originally thought it would be a little lame just because it was a lab that I had already done before but getting to see the freshmen and sophomores who hadn’t really experienced a real dissection before just be fully amazed by the giant bucket of brains I had hauled in made me feel like I did something really good. That’s definitely a lab that I’m planning on bringing back this year as an intro to the anatomy of the brain and just so I can use it as a basis to teach everyone the different locations and functions that the brain has.

There are also a bunch of new things that I want to do this year as well, but it really depends on how many people are interested and end up coming to our informational meeting. I really don’t want our club just to be the Brain Bee but more so a neuroscience club where people can come and just learn something new and then maybe get rewarded for their interest and knowledge by winning at the competition. My goal is to just get everyone excited about neuroscience topics and then introduce them to how it can translate into a career in the healthcare field. 

A new idea that I have for a possible dissection is to bring in a bunch of cow eyeballs we used in Anatomy & Physiology class last year to demonstrate our Senses & Perceptions Unit for the Brain Bee and have kids get more hands-on experience with performing dissections really early on in their lives. After introducing the different locations and functions of the brain, the next topic we directly go into is talking about how our ears, eyes, nose, and tongue work in conjunction with our brain. That’s why just having back-to-back dissections would just be really fun and cool to put together for this upcoming year.

I’m also planning on having a community aspect or volunteering aspect for our club so that we can branch out and be more involved with other people. I am thinking of putting together a Christmas fundraiser where we would sell chocolates to students in the lunchrooms at North in order to raise money for our competition travel fees and team uniform fees. However, if we end up being really successful we can also definitely donate the remaining profits to a local Alzheimer’s care facility or something along those lines.

Another community aspect that I was also considering exploring was opening up a free neuroscience course for elementary school kids at the Alive Center and having it taught directly by us. I think it would be really cool to just pull up one day and let a bunch of kids explore a sheep’s brain and allow them to learn more about neuroscience. It’s all about expanding our knowledge and increasing exposure so I feel like this would be a great activity to start up later this year.

I also have a bunch of other free online courses that students can enroll in as well. They can have the chance to learn more about neurons and neurotransmitters and all that more in-depth than we normally would so those who are interested in pursuing an independent and self-paced aspect to our club could definitely have that opportunity if they wanted to.

Another thing that I would like to maybe accomplish this year is to invite a professional psychologist or psychiatrist or someone in that related field to hop onto a Zoom call and just talk to our members about what their job is like and how they originally got interested in their field. That way we can connect our topics and what we learn about neuroscience to the greater picture and how that works its way into becoming a potential career.

Definitely though, the Brain Bee is going to be incredibly busy this year considering I’m planning on doing all of these activities. I’m sure though that we’ll be able to do it and more if we just get a good amount of people who are deeply dedicated to learning more about neuroscience. If anyone reading this has any questions feel free to comment or ask me if you are interested in joining the Brain Bee. If you have any opportunities as well or additional ideas about things we could do this year, please do reach out! Thanks for reading!