lesson

Exercise your students' web search skills while they learn about the structure and function of the nervous system.

The quest consists of going to three different websites - the last two of which show flash animations of the synapse. The student guide attached below includes full instructions and worksheets.

This lesson and the accompanying student guide were written by Kevin Molohon, teacher at Champlin Park High School in the Anoka-Hennepin School District and a recent BrainU participant.

The brain integrates sensory information in ways that we do not always recognize consciously. This activity utilizes multimedia devices in order to explain how the brain takes in sensory information. Students will learn about how the brain can change information provided by the senses.

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 1 class period

Models represent neuroscience in important ways but are not precisely the same as neurons or brains themselves. In this lesson, students are introduced to models through questions posed by the teacher.

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: Part of 1 class period

Under stress the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is activated. Body temperature rises and, in an effort to maintain normal body temperature, the body starts to sweat. In this exercise, students will be placed in different - potentially stressful - situations and then will measure palm sweating as part of the body’s response to stress.

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 1 class period

Students use the Mindflex™ game to explore and measure different homeostatic autonomic nervous system functions while trying to figure out how the game works.

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 2-3 class periods

This lesson explores the relationship between motor response time and cognitive load, using a simple deck of playing cards. It offers opportunity to explore data analysis and critique experimental design.

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 1 class period

Students play a game that models the unknown potential for individual addiction, as well as some scientific inquiry processes. This lesson is based on information originally from the NIH curriculum The Brain: Understanding Neurobiology through the Study of Addiction.

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 1 class period

This lesson allows students to apply engineering principles in the science classroom. Students learn how neurons convey information through designing and building a physical model of neurotransmission.

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 1 class period

The ability to identify with and understand another person's situation, feelings, or motives is called empathy. Recent developments in neuroscience have focused on a system within the brain called "mirror neurons" as a likely explanation for emotional empathy.

In this lesson students explore emotions and the behavioral aspects of empathy through mirroring the emotions of other students while watching emotionally evocative videos.

The brain physically changes when exposed to drugs. This activity utilizes scientific thinking and assessment without the need for laboratory equipment. Students investigate how neurons change their connectivity when exposed to the drug morphine.