Open Practical Laboratories in the Neurosciences: An outreach program for neuroscience communication in middle schools

Abstract

The 1990s were marked as the Decade of the Brain, in response to rapidly increasing interest, by lay audience and scientists alike, on the study of neuroscience (Herculano-Houzel, 2002). From this decade onward, neuroscience gained prominence in the general public; despite this increased interest, however, a decline in the interest of young people in pursuing scientific careers in general and a widespread scientific ignorance in the general populace were observed worldwide in the last 30 years (Gouw et al., 2016; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016;Osborne et al., 2003). In this context, outreach programs which promote positive and favorable attitudes toward (neuro)science and (neuro)scientists, as well as a generally favorable attitude toward learning science, is an emerging matter of concern (Sperduti et al., 2012). Attitudes are important affective-motivational components of science education which include "the feelings, beliefs and values held about an object that may be the enterprise of science, school science, the impact of science on society or scientists themselves" (Dekker et al., 2012;

A critical systematic review of K-12 neurology/neuroscience pipeline programs

“…The age range varied, with 5/23 (21.7%) of the K-12 group articles describing programs for elementary school students, 8/23 (34.8%) describing programs for middle school students, 8/23 (34.8%) describing programs for high school students, and 2/23 (8.7%) describing programs for K-12 students. Only 6/23 (26.1%) of the articles explicitly referenced a historically marginalized demographic, with an even breakdown of elementary ( 11 , 12 ), middle ( 13 , 14 ), and high school groups ( 15 , 16 ). Programs which specifically engaged historically marginalized students are marked with an asterisk (*) in Table 1 .…”

“…Only two of the programs included an explicit mention of a long-term mentorship component ( 11 , 28 ), although 7 of the remaining programs facilitated an interaction between K-12 students and a neuroscientist ( 13 , 14 , 16–18 , 29 , 30 ), 3 with a neuroscience undergraduate student ( 12 , 15 , 21 ), 1 with neuroscientists and undergraduates ( 26 ), and 3 with neurology graduate/medical students or resident ( 22–24 ).…”

“…Out of 23 programs, 3/23 (13%) did not specify the exact number of participants ( 11 , 25 , 26 ), 4/23 (17.4%) had under fifty participants ( 15 , 23 , 28 , 30 ), and 3/23 (13%) had between fifty and one hundred participants ( 12 , 16 , 18 ). For the remainder of the programs, 4/23 (17.4%) had between one and two hundred participants ( 19 , 21 , 24 , 29 ), 4/23 (17.4%) had between two and four hundred participants ( 14 , 17 , 31 , 32 ), 1/23 (4.35%) had over one thousand participants ( 13 ), and 2/23 (8.7%) had close to or over ten thousand participants ( 22 , 33 ).…”

“…The duration and length of the programs varied. Twelve programs were brief, lasting 2 h or less, and/or delivered only once ( 13 , 14 , 18–22 , 26 , 29–31 , 34 ), whereas eleven were longer-form content that required multiple days or weeks to implement ( 11 , 12 , 15–17 , 23 , 24 , 28 , 32 , 33 ). Of the shorter programs, components often included presentations/lectures, interactive activities, and demonstrations.…”

Flexible, short‐duration outreach sessions in the human anatomy laboratory provide authentic, humanistic experiences

“…Previous authors have shown that outreach sessions enhance learning and inspire students to consider careers in science (Miranda Feitosa et al, 2021), health and medicine (Hubbard et al, 2005; Zhang et al, 2016) or in higher education more broadly (Saravanapandian et al, 2019). Successful models include half‐day, hands‐on, organ‐based exercises (Clarke et al, 2019) or “Mini Med School” programs (Henderson et al, 2015); “Shadow a Scientist” programs in which students are paired with a scientist mentor for a laboratory visit (Clark et al, 2016); and “Grow up, grow out” programs that return to common themes as students age and develop to increase the complexity of lessons (“grow up”) and the interdisciplinary aspect of lessons as well (“grow out”) (Deal et al, 2014).…”