NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS NEWSLETTER
Volume 7, Issue 12 (December, 2003)

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Welcome to the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter.

Here is what you will find in this issue:

1. What's New on the Neuroscience for Kids Web Pages
2. Neuroscience for Kids Site of the Month
3. Neuroscience for Kids Writing Contest - Now Open
4. Society for Neuroscience Meeting
5. Brain Awareness Week 2004
6. E-mail
7. Media Alert
8. Treasure Trove of Brain Trivia
9. Support Neuroscience for Kids
10. How to Stop Your Subscription
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1. WHAT'S NEW ON THE NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS PAGES

Neuroscience for Kids had several new additions in November. Here are some of them:

A. November Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter was archived
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/news711.html
B. January 2004 Neurocalendar
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/pdf/jan04.pdf
C. Do Snakes Have a Preference for Coiling Direction?
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/snakes.html
D. Contagious Yawning
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/yawnc.html
E. Hippocampal Neurogenesis Relieves Depressive Symptoms
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/hipnd.html
F. FDA Cautions Against Antidepressant Use in Children
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/antid.html

In November, 31 new figures were added and 103 pages were modified.
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2. NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS "SITE OF THE MONTH"

The Neuroscience for Kids "Site of the Month" for December is "The Center for Insect Science Education Outreach (CISEO)" at:

http://insected.arizona.edu/home.htm

CISEO was established 13 years ago at the University of Arizona to develop lessons for teachers and scientists about using live insects in the classroom. These lessons teach health and science concepts and are available on the CISEO web site in English and Spanish.

The web site is divided into two main sections. The section titled "Using Live Insects in Elementary Classrooms for Early Lessons in Life" contains A) 20 lesson plans to teach kindergarten through third grade students about science, health and math, B) 17 information sheets with facts about insects, C) 17 rearing sheets with information about maintaining insects and D) an extensive bibliography about different insects. Several experiments deal directly with neuroscience. For example, "Getting to Know You" uses mealworms to teach about mental health, "Using My Senses" uses crickets to teach about the senses and "Bug Eyes" uses praying mantid to teach about the eye.

The second section, titled "Acres of Insects," is intended for teachers of high school classrooms. This section has two hands-on, inquiry-based experiments about human ecology.

CISEO also has a list of companies that sell insects...just in case you can't find any bugs under some rocks and leaves.
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3. NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS WRITING CONTEST - NOW OPEN

The NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS WRITING CONTEST is now open to students in kindergarten through high school. Use your imagination to create a poem, limerick or haiku about the brain and you might win a prize. Writing examples, the complete set of rules and the official entry form for the contest are available at:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/contest03.html
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4. SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE ANNUAL MEETING

New Orleans, LA, was the site for last month's annual Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting. The SfN meeting attracts thousands of neuroscientists from around the world to discuss cutting-edge research about the nervous system.

The SfN also hosted 30 K-12 teachers at the meeting. In fact, I met a few teachers who found out about the SfN meeting by reading the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter! A travel stipend of $1,000 was given to five teachers to help them attend the meeting.

On Saturday, November 8, the SfN Committee on Neuroscience Literacy sponsored a workshop for teachers. The teachers toured several laboratories at Louisiana State University Medical Center where they saw neuroscience in action. The teachers also participated in hands-on workshops highlighting ideas to bring neuroscience into the classroom. On Sunday, the teachers could attend presentations by three successful programs that have established partnerships between neuroscientists and schools.

Approximately 250 high school students from the New Orleans area also visited the meeting. These students listened to presentations by past SfN presidents Dr. Donald Price and Dr. Huda Akil. Following these presentations, neuroscientist guides took the students on a tour of the main exhibit where they viewed scientific posters and picked up toys, pens, calendars, erasers, magnets and other promotional items from various vendors.

The SfN meeting will be held next year (October 23-27, 2004) in San Diego, CA. The Committee on Neuroscience Literacy is already hard at work planning new workshops for K-12 teachers and high school students.
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5. BRAIN AWARENESS WEEK 2004

Brain Awareness Week (BAW) will be here soon! The official week for BAW is March 15-21, 2004, but anytime is a great time to celebrate the brain. BAW was established several years ago by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and the Society for Neuroscience. BAW is now an international event with people all over the globe planning activities to spotlight the brain. For more information on BAW, please visit the Dana Alliance and Society for Neuroscience web sites at:

http://www.dana.org/brainweek/

and

http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=baw_home

I strongly encourage you to participate in BAW. Your BAW activities do not have to be complicated. Perhaps your class can develop a "Brain Fair" for other students, parents and teachers. There may be neuroscientists who can visit your class with a presentation about the brain. BAW is a time when many neuroscientists are looking for classes to visit. The Society for Neuroscience maintains a list of neuroscientists interested in K-12 education outreach. Check this list to find a neuroscientist near you:

http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=neuroscientistTeacherPartners

*** SPECIAL NOTE TO TEACHERS IN THE SEATTLE AREA ***

Do you want to bring your students (grades 4-12) to the 2004 Brain Awareness Week Open House at the University of Washington on Wednesday, March 24, 2004? We are now accepting applications. Please complete and return the application form (in either PDF format or WORD format):

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/pdf/teachinv.pdf

or

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/pdf/teachinv.doc

To read about last year's BAW Open House at the University of Washington, please see:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/baw03oh.html

If you cannot download the application form for the open house, contact Dr. Chudler by e-mail: chudler@u.washington.edu
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6. E-MAIL

Many people change their e-mail addresses at the end of the year. Some people choose different addresses to get better Internet service. Other people change e-mail addresses to stop the flood of unwanted messages ("spam"). If you will be changing your e-mail address and still want to receive the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter, please let me know by sending a note to me at: chudler@u.washington.edu.
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7. MEDIA ALERT

A. "The Reeve Effect" by Jerome Groopman in The New Yorker magazine (November 10, 2003, pages 82-93) discusses how Christopher Reeve is changing how scientists conduct medical research.

B. The December 2003 issue of Discover magazine is full of neuroscience-related stories: i) "The Power of Babble," about babies' brains and babbling, pages 30-32; ii) "Blast from the Vast," about a scientist who scanned a 600-pound whale head to unlock some of the mysteries of how marine mammals produce sounds, pages 50-57; iii) "Testing Pesticides on Humans," about neurotoxins in pesticides, and how they affect our daily life. Pages 66-69; iv) "The 8 Greatest Unanswered Questions of Medical Science" on pages 70-76 includes What Causes Alzheimer's Disease?, Can Aging be Arrested? and Can Humans Learn to Regenerate?

C. "Decoding Schizophrenia" by Daniel C. Javitt and Joseph T. Coyle in the January 2004 issue of Scientific American.

D. "Real Rhapsody in Blue" by Anne Underwood in Newsweek magazine (December 1, 2003, page 67) discusses synesthesia. For another discussion of synesthesia, see: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html
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8. THE TREASURE TROVE OF BRAIN TRIVIA

A. The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae causes more than 3,000 cases of meningitis in the US each year. (Source: Discover, April 2003, page 23.)

B. John Adams (2nd President of the US) and his son, John Quincy Adams (6th President of the US), were both born in Braintree, Massachusetts.

C. In 2001, approximately 22.8% of the adults in the US were smokers. In 1993, approximately 25.0% of the adults in the US were smokers. (Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 52:953-956, 2003.)

D. Adolf Eugen Fick coined the term "contact lens." He made the first contact lens for vision correction from glass in 1887. (Source: A.S. Harding. Milestones in Health and Medicine, Phoenix (AZ) Oryx Press, 2000.)

E. Right-footed African Grey parrots have a larger vocabulary than left-footed African Grey parrots. (Source: Snyder, P.J. and Harris, L.J. Lexicon size and its relation to foot preference in the African Grey parrot "Psittacus erithacus", Neuropsychologia 35:919-926, 1997.)
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9. SUPPORT NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS

To insure that Neuroscience for Kids stays available, we need your help. If you would like to contribute to the funding of Neuroscience for Kids, please download one of the forms below. Simply print out the page, fill out the form, and mail it to the address listed. All contributions are tax deductible (subject to IRS regulations).

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/pdf/help.pdf

or

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/helpform.html
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10. HOW TO STOP RECEIVING THIS NEWSLETTER

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)

"Neuroscience for Kids" is supported by a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Center of Research Resources.