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On May 17th a group of undergraduate students, osteopathic medical students, faculty and staff from the Â鶹´«Ã½ Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences (CEN) visited with over 160 2nd graders at the Biddeford Primary School.

The students were encouraged to think about how their brain works throughout their busy days. Medical student Ruth Welch gave a basic introduction to the major parts of the brain and the importance of protecting it from injury by using helmets and seatbelts. Others helping out included Hunter Sweet (COM), Denise Giuvelis (COM), Lindsay St. Louis (CAS Neuroscience), Jordan Faloon (CAS Neuroscience) and Drs. John Lowery and Edward Bilsky (COM).

Hands on activities including completing a series of brain mazes that demonstrated aspects of learning and memory and the importance of practicing a task to improve performance. A favorite of the students was the Stroop test in which each child reads the words of different colors off of a card as quickly as possible. The kids found it much more challenging when the color of the letters did not match the named color, helping them understand how the brain processes different type of visual information.

Work in the Biddeford School system was just one of many outreach activities that the CEN has conducted over the past year from Kennebunk to Sanford up to South Portland. The purpose of the CEN outreach program is to stimulate interest in the sciences and provide an experience that local students wouldn’t otherwise have in a typical curriculum. The program also provides the students the opportunity to interact with Â鶹´«Ã½undergraduate and professional students and learn more about the college experience.