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Happy New Year from Neuroscience for Kids!
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Welcome to the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter.
In this issue:
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Neuroscience for Kids had several new additions in December including:
A. December Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter was archived
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/news2312.html
B. New Neuroscience in the News
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/inthenews.html
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The Neuroscience for Kids "Site of the Month" for December is "BrainSTEM" at:
https://zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/brainstem
BrainSTEM is a series of neuroscience lesson plans and activities based on the work of researchers at Columbia University. The lessons were created by New York City teachers and reviewed for accuracy by neuroscientists. The site currently has lesson plans for eight topics: Introduction to Neuroscience; Brain Anatomy & Function; Neurons; Neuroplasticity; Anorexia Nervosa; DNA Sequencing and Precision Medicine; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Stroke. Each topic has lesson plans (PDF), worksheets (PDF) and slide decks (PPT) that can be downloaded. Each lesson plan also has step-by-step instructions to help teachers guide their students through the material.
Teachers who are just starting a unit about neuroscience should find BrainSTEM extremely useful. The lessons are well written, simple to use, and require minimal supplies. Students may also get ideas from the materials to use in science fairs and school projects.
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There is one more month to send in your entry to the 2020 NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POETRY WRITING CONTEST. Students (kindergarten through high school, undergraduate, graduate), teachers and parents are all welcome to enter the contest. Use your imagination to create a poem, limerick or haiku about the brain and you might win a prize. The complete set of rules and the official entry form for the contest are available at:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/contest20.html
Entries must be received by February 1, 2020.
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Last month I attended the National Science Teachers Association Regional Meeting in Seattle (WA). At the meeting, I gave two presentations: one with staff from the Dana Foundation and another with science teachers who created neural engineering units while they were in the Center for Neurotechnology Summer Research Experience for Teacher program.
About 50 teachers attended my first presentation, "Introducing the Nervous System with Models" with the Dana Foundation. During this presentation, I demonstrated how to build simple models of neurons and the brain using easy-to-find and inexpensive materials. We built neurons from string, rope and pipe cleaners and played the "Pass the Neurotransmitter" game to show how neurons use electrical and chemical signals to communicate. Even though the session was early in the morning, the teachers were all very enthusiastic and ready to learn. You can read about the models we used at Neuroscience for Kids and at the Dana Foundation web sites:
During my second presentation, I teamed with two teachers who developed an artificial neuron network lesson and a sensory substitution lesson when they were part of the Research Experience for Teachers program at the Center for Neurotechnology. I brought along a robotic gripper that is controlled by electrical activity produced by a muscle. First, we discussed the importance of neural engineering and then divided the 20 attendees into three groups. Each group worked with one of the demonstrations and then they switched to see a different demonstration. You can find these and other neural engineering lesson plans and activities on the Center for Neurotechnology web site at:
http://centerforneurotech.org/content/lesson-plans
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"Menu engineering" is the fascinating science of creating a restaurant menu that influences diners in a positive way (and helps a restaurant make more money). People who develop effective menus must know about psychology, marketing, accounting, and graphic design. A bit of neuroscience would probably help too because the flavor of food is affected by taste, smell, touch, sight and sound.
You might think that the only job of a menu is to show a restaurant's offerings and item prices. Menu engineers try to design menus to convince you to buy certain food and drinks and even change the way you perceive what you eat and drink. Let's take a close look at a menu. Have you noticed that some menus, especially those in fancy restaurants, do not use a dollar sign ($)? Instead, prices are listed simply with a number, for example, 12 instead of $12. A dollar sign just reminds diners that they are about to spend money. This is not the right way to start a meal. Some people in the restaurant business know that people tend to spend more money when they are given menus without dollar signs. Restaurants also do not usually price food ending in .99, such as 12.99. Ending the cost of food with .99 just makes the item seem cheap. Another way to get a diner's mind away from cost is to make sure that the prices on a menu are not arranged in a straight line. Prices that are not lined up in a column are difficult for people to compare. This discourages people from making choices based on price.
Adjusting the description, location, font type, font color and font size of an item on a menu can also be used to manipulate what a person will order. An elegant or stylish description of a food may entice diners to order a dish and make it seem more appetizing. For example, which sounds better: "Grilled Hamburger" or "Gourmet Smokehouse Hamburger with Tangy BBQ Sauce?" Which would you choose: "Tex-Mex Salad" or "Zesty Southwestern Harvest Salad? "Baked Turkey" or "Triple-Basted, Tender, Slow-Roasted Turkey?" Descriptive menu labels can increase sales and improve a diner's attitude about food.
Some restaurants place expensive items near the top of a menu so other items look less expensive. Expensive or profitable items are sometimes surrounded by a box to draw people's attention. Another trick that menu engineers use is to write more appealing descriptions for expensive dishes in hopes that people will choose those items over less expensive dishes. Some restaurant menus use "decoy" items: expensive items on a menu intended to make other items look cheaper. The restaurant knows you probably won't buy the expensive item, but it will make something else look more reasonable.
Not every restaurant uses all of these tricks, but the next time you go to a restaurant, pay attention to how a menu is trying to influence you.
References:
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A. "Fatigue" by Scott Grafton (NATURAL HISTORY, December 2019-January 2020).
B. The Winter 2019 issue of POPULAR SCIENCE magazine is all about sound.
C. "Why Your Brain Needs Exercise" by David A. Raichlen and Gene E. Alexander (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, January, 2020).
D. "'Birdbrain' Turns from Insult to Praise" by Onur Gunturkun (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, January, 2020).
E. "Technique Takes Sleepers from Zzz to Aha!"by Matthew Hutson (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, January, 2020).
F. "Scientists are Unraveling the Mysteries of Pain" by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, January, 2020).
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A. Neuron EV is the name of an electric car company.
B. Last month, former National Basketball Association commissioner David Stern suffered a brain hemorrhage and passed away on January 1, 2020.
C. Possible neural tissue was found in a 500-million-year-old fossil of an insect-like animal. (Source: Ortega-Hernández, J., Lerosey-Aubril, R. and Pates, S., Proclivity of nervous system preservation in Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits, 286. Proc. R. Soc. B., http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.2370, published December 11, 2019.)
D. The University of Sheffield (Sheffield, UK) was recently awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for innovation in neuroscience.
E. The muscles used to focus the eye adjust 100,000 times each day. (Source: Goes, F.J., The Eye in History, New Delhi (India): Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd., 2013.)
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To remove yourself from this mailing list and stop your subscription to
the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter, send e-mail to Dr. Eric H. Chudler
at: chudler@u.washington.edu
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Your comments and suggestions about this newsletter and the "Neuroscience for Kids" web site are always welcome. If there are any special topics that you would like to see on the web site, just let me know.Eric
Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D.
(e-mail: chudler@u.washington.edu)
(URL:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html)