2023 Neuroscience Teacher Academy Q & A

Show & Tell
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Thank you for attending our first Neuroscience Teacher Academy! Now that you’ve experienced an introduction to some of our labs and Dr. Kaitlyn Casimo’s talk, please answer the following here in our forum:

  1. What are 1-2 questions you still have about what you learned at our first session on March 22?
  2. What inspiration did you gain for how you could incorporate neuroscience into your classroom after week 1?
  3. What barriers do you face to incorporating research grade data into your classrooms?

Please answer by the end of day on Sunday, March 26 to give us time to seek answers for your questions! We encourage you and your students to access this forum to interact with scientists any time you have questions about our open data resources and beyond!

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  1. *** What are 1-2 questions you still have about what you learned at our first session on March 22?** What is the range of response times in neural transmission- what are the fastest as slowest signals that are transduced? How many neurons are in the 1mm^3 samples that are imaged? How many other cells types are found in the human brain? What is the main function of the rosehip neurons and why do other organisms not have them? What is the most unusual cell type in non-human brains?
  2. *** What inspiration did you gain for how you could incorporate neuroscience into your classroom after week 1?** I would like to have students dissect brains in class- what would be the best type of brain for student dissections? If we did this, what areas would be the most distinctive and easiest to identify? I would like to have an inquiry lesson on cell types and was inspired by the different types of neurons- what would be some features, patterns and functions that students could be guided to discover if given images of these different neuron types? For my IB class, I would like to understand more about sensory pathways in the brain and how they developed over evolutionary time- which are the most ancient neural pathways that have to do with movement and which are the most recent? Which are most important for reaction times, for information processing and for developing physical skills?
  3. *** What barriers do you face to incorporating research grade data into your classrooms?** I don’t have enough knowledge to guide my students in these explorations. I don’t have enough time to research and develop specific lessons with relevant examples that relate to health, sports and evolution. I would like to learn about story lines to bring brain research into a student project or lab.
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I am curious to find out more about the morphology of excitatory vs inhibitory synapses. I also wonder how long it will take to map out the entirety of a mouse or a human brain? Even the mouse brain - working at the scale of individual neurons - seems like it would take a prohibitively long time to map. To what extent can the labs automate the process to reduce this to a practical amount of time (similar to the way DNA sequencing has been automated)?

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I can’t wait to have my students begin to use the databases from the Allen Center to explore their own research questions about the brain. In the future, I plant to include this as an option/extension for students during the unit in my Biology class where students design an experiment to answer a question about brain function. To date, these experiments were necessarily confined to the realm of psychology (experiments about memory, sensory perception, peer pressure, etc.). While my students are often very creative incoming up with ideas for how to test their hypothesis, the nature of the questions they could explore were limited to ones where they could gather data from observable behaviors, self-reports, etc. They could not really test ideas related to underlying brain structures. It is my hope that these data bases will open up a whole new realm of questions that students could explore. The barrier I face is primarily one of student knowledge and comfort - how approachable will this data be for students with a minimal knowledge of neuroscience? Will the vast quantity of data prove to be overwhelming for students? Will they be able to come up with questions on their own that would be answerable with this data set? I can’t wait to find out!

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Hi everyone! If you have trouble creating an account on our community forum with your school email address, you can either email us your responses to the 3 questions at education@alleninstitute.org, or try creating an account with a personal email address. Apologies for the few folks who have had some troubles!

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  1. #1 I’m really interested in the transcriptomics analysis of the neurons. Is this something we will be going into at all next week? I can see using this as the basis of one of my AP Biology units. #2 It’s been challenging for me to teach my students basic histology. Does the institute have any resources available to help students understand the tissue organization of the brain? Such as clear diagrams, descriptions of what different stains do, images that can be accessed. Will we be able to see any more of the TEM work? I can see those images being useful in both of my classes.

  2. After the class I looked up some of the educational lessons you have posted about neurons. I will definitely use the ideas about what neurons look like in situ compared to in textbooks. Using some of the 3D images will really help the students visualize the actual structure of the tissue. Many of my students are interested in neuroscience and I suspect that I will be able to use much of the information we get in my planning.

  3. Although my students have high computer skills, I am concerned about the amount of time it may take them to learn to use the system effectively. In my AP class I’m normally in a time crunch and in my A&P class I have a wide variety of student abilities. Most likely I would use this in AP Bio to start with. Possibly at the end of the year after the exam to give the system a try. Once I know what sort of data is available I think I can come up with a starting point.

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1. What are 1-2 questions you still have about what you learned at our first session on March 22?

  • Do neurons replicate the same as other cells (ie mitosis)? If so, what types of signals drive their replication?
  • I’ve heard that during normal human development that we lose neurons as our brains work mor efficiently. Can you describe this process in more detail?
  • Do neurons move in the brain or do they move around? Either way how many other neurons can they communicate with at one time?

Questions from my students after I shred with them:

  • How can you tell different parts of the brain?
  • How much of the human brain has been mapped?
  • How do you map the whole brain? Where do the brains come from?
  • Do psychological conditions show physical changes in the brain?
  • Where does consciousness come from?

2. What inspiration did you gain for how you could incorporate neuroscience into your classroom after week 1? In my biology classes we have been talking about cells & genetics. I shared with them after the 1st week’s training photos from the tours and a description of the neurons based on Kaitlin’s talk.

3. What barriers do you face to incorporating research grade data into your classrooms? I need time and collaboration to determine how to fit it in to existing curricula in a way that is meaningful and engaging for high school students, ie integrated into a driving question.

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  1. What are 1-2 questions you still have about what you learned at our first session on March 22?

After our first session on March 22 the question that I walked away with was how to incorporate the Allen Institute and the resources available at the elementary and middle school level.

I am also curious about the different programs available now to students and if there are any internships available for high school students.

  1. What inspiration did you gain for how you could incorporate neuroscience into your classroom after week 1?

Seeing Kaitlyn’s presentation with the different images ignited some ideas about how to incorporate the idea of art into science, especially for younger students.

  1. What barriers do you face to incorporating research grade data into your classrooms.

One barrier I face is creating the curriculum that would support incorporating research data. At this moment, I don’t have curriculum that focuses on neuroscience. There are a lot of resources from the Allen Institute it is just a matter of time to adjust them to my students and their access points.

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  1. What are 1-2 questions you still have about what you learned at our first session on March 22?

I’d love to learn more about the other branches of the Allen institute and what they’re doing.

I’m curious if bird intelligence is being considered as a potential future area of research. With local UW investigations into Corvid intelligence, it would be interesting to compare avian brain cells to mammals and map the brain of parrots or crows.

  1. What inspiration did you gain for how you could incorporate neuroscience into your classroom after week 1?

I have introduced neurons at a simple level using the same language and visuals presented to us on Wednesday! I also shared photos and updates of current research with students and lots of photos and videos of microscopes.

  1. What barriers do you face to incorporating research grade data into your classrooms?

Right now I’m not sure which questions are the right ones to ask to have students analyze or evaluate research grade data. I’d love help with this, and hear what others are doing!

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  1. What are 1-2 questions you still have about what you learned at our first session on March 22?
    I wondered about the inhibitory and excitatory neurons. Do the amount of these on a neuron change through a person’s lifetime? Do the ratio of these determine whether a person has a specific disorder in the brain or body?

  2. What inspiration did you gain for how you could incorporate neuroscience into your classroom after week 1?
    I wondered about how we could model the processes that we say in the different labs inside a classroom so that students could experience/ visualize these different lab techniques. I agree with Cerveny that using some of the 3D representations will help students better visualize the information.

  3. What barriers do you face to incorporating research grade data into your classrooms?
    I think that the barriers that I see are would be related to the level of skill needed to work with the platform and the time needed to teach the students how to use the platform. My students come to me to various levels of skills, and some of them may get lost and give up quickly. So I would be interested in ways that the platform could be modified for different types of learners. Also being able to make connections between the tools and what actually happens in the different labs will be important to model.