Brain Task Cards

Go to the Exploratorium website: Memory Solitaire and play Memory Solitaire to test your memory. Follow the links for memory tricks to help you remember better, and take the test again. Report your findings.


Go to the Exploratorium website and study the works of the Memory Artist. Then paint a picture of a house you used to live in. If you have only lived in your current house, paint it in as much detail as possible, then bring in a photograph of it to compare.Memory Artist

The meaning of Droodles! Check out the Exploratorium website:
The meaning of Droodles! Make your own and share them with the class.



THANKS for the MEMORIES. 
This activity is in the BrainBox.  Then have a buddy try this activity.  After you complete these, report what you remember about this activity.


The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus: The first use of "neuro" words in recorded history. Find out about neurosurgery in Egypt! Go to:
The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus
Report your findings.


Your brain stores millions of facts. Sometimes you need to be prompted to remember all of them. Try this game to release your hidden knowledge. Go through all the exercises then report your findings.
Release your hidden knowledge

What is your digit span? It has nothing to do with your fingers or your ability to play the piano! Go to the amazing brain site and work through their exercise to determine yours, and to improve yours, too! Show what you can do. What is your digit span?


Can you work out how people feel by watching their body language? Go to:
Speaking without words and then click on “Click here to find out.”
Compare your results with other people. Why is this important? Make up an experiment where you can test how well other students read body language, try it on other students in the classroom, and make a graph of your results.


PUZZLE GRAMS
Solve as many Puzzle Grams as possible.  See how many you can do in fifteen minutes.  Then try another set for fifteen minutes and see if practice helps improve your score.  Puzzle Grams are found in the BrainBox.


BRAIN SURGERY
Read Brain Surgery for Beginners and Other Major Operations for Minors.  It is in the Brain Library.  Share what you have learned.

LINGERING MEMORIES
Read “Remember This:  In the Archives of the Brain, Our Lives Linger or Disappear” in National Geographic, November 2007, page 32.  This magazine is in the Brain Library.  Share what you have learned.



HARRIS BURDICK MYSTERIES
When Chris Van Allsburg was invited to the home of Peter Wenders, he discovered fourteen drawings that were, like pieces of a picture puzzle, clues to larger pictures.  But these puzzles, the mysteries, are not solved for us, as in the final pages of a book.  The solutions to these mysteries lie in a place at once closer at hand, yet far more remote.  They lie in our imagination.  Find these pictures in the Brain Library in The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  Choose one and write the story that goes with it.




Build Your Own Brain
Color and cut out the lobes of the brain, then put the puzzle together to learn gross brain anatomy.  Find the pieces of your brain in your BrainBox.





Inside-Outside Brain
Squiggly and wrinkled on the outside, but filled with intricate structures on the inside. Color in the structures and fold up this model to see the surface of the brain!  Find the necessary parts in the BrainBox







Wear's Your Brain?
The famous BrainConnection Brain Hat! Color, cut out, and then wear this stylish brain, the latest trend in neuro-fashion.  Look for your brainy materials in the BrainBox
 



Whose Brain Is It?
Want to learn more about how animals think? Match these feathered and furry friends with their brains to see how all brains are specialized.  This matching activity page is in the BrainBox.



BUILDING NEURONS
First learn about neurons at: Building Neurons
Then build your own out of play-dough or even beads!  (Instructions for the beads can be found in your Brainbox).  You can try with string, or playdough.



CONNECT THE DOTS
This exercise is to illustrate the complexity of the connections of the brain.  Find instructions and the dots in the BrainBox.


SLICE AND DICE
Learn the planes of sections and anatomical directions as you slice open a brain.  Dissect a jello brain:  a coronal section first, horizontal, then a sagittal section.  See the “slice” page for correct directions and planes.  Explain the vocabulary surgeons use in describing anatomical directions.


Brain Hieroglyphics
This is the Egyptian hieroglyphic for “brain.” However, you don't have to worry about reading ancient Egyptian for the puzzles in the BrainBox. Your job is to "read" the pictures to make a single word or phrase. Each word or phrase has something to do with the nervous system.  You need to know a lot of Brain vocabulary!  Write your answers in your Daily Log.  You can test a buddy, too.  Keep track of the results.


Sam's Brainy Adventure
Join Sam on his adventure into his own brain.  Sam is reading about the brain when he falls asleep. In his dream, he finds out he is inside his own brain! He meets some guides who take him on an exploration of the nervous system.  What will Sam see? What will he hear? What will he learn about the nervous system?  Read the book and then find some buddies to help you put on the play for your class.  Maybe you could perform it somewhere else, too!  Find the comic book and the script for the play in the BrainBox.



Neuroscience Coloring Book
Color the pages of this book and figure out brain facts.  BrainBox.





THE BRAIN GAME
The winner is the first to collect 20 neurons.  Remember, the more neurons you have, the more efficient your brain.  The game is in the BrainBox.


Brains and Neurons Board Game
If you lnd on the cell body of the neuron, advance to the end,  If you land on the brain, move down to the end of the spinal cord.  Find the game in the BrainBox.





What’s in Your Mind?
This article can be found in the brain library in the National Geographic:  March 2005, page 2.  Read about it and report on what’s in your mind!


Quiet Miracles of the Brain
Use the miracle of the brain library to find this article in the National Geographic of June, 1995.  This is on page 2.  Share what you have learned about how our brains work.



Synaptic Tag
The object of the game is to get as many neurotransmitters across the synapse to the dendrite without being caught (deactivated) by the enzyme.  Draw the game board on the BrainBox.  Divide the class into two teams. Be sure to understand the synapse:  parts and functions of the neuron and the importance of neurotransmitters for the transmission of information within the nervous system. 


Brain Freeze Tag
Using a diagram or chart of the brain, make sure the players have a working vocabulary related to neurology.  Help the players know the boundary limits and where students may be tagged.  You are “it!”  See the instructions in the BrainBox. 


NEURON CHAIN TAG
You are “it!”  Tag another player and add him to your chain.  Keep building your neuron chain!  Create the longest chain of neurons ever.  Look for the instructions in the BrainBox.


NEURON JUMP ROPE
Neuron, neuron in my brain,
How many neurons will I gain?
Grab a jump rope and the instructions in the BrainBox and count up your neurons.  Be sure to figure out the last question.




SALTATORY CONDUCTION RELAY GAME
See which team of myelinated nerve fibers jumps the fastest!  Use a ball as the action potential.  You will need to understand all the instructions to explain this to your classmates.  Those instructions are in the BrainBox.


   
METAPHORS FOR THE BRAIN
Is a camera similar to a brain?  A spider web?  Look at the list of Brain Metaphors to learn more about how the brain works.  Not all of the items include the explanation of “why.”  That is your job!  Find this activity in the BrainBox.


THINKING LIKE A MONKEY
Monkey think, Monkey do!  What do our primate cousins know and when do they know it?  Researchers are trying to read their minds.  Follow their experiments and discover how much or how little we share the way we think and plan.  Find this article in the BrainBox.  What experiments would you run?  Make your report. 



BRAIN BOARD GAME
Move around the Brain Board and land on each item on your brain card:  a neurotransmitter, a lobe of the brain, a part of a neuron, and a part of the brain.  Find this game in the Brain Box.



NEURAL TIC TAC TOE
Guess what the pictures in the three rows, the three columns and 2 diagonals have in common in this puzzle.  Find this game in the BrainBox.  Be sure and demonstrate what you have learned.


THE DISAPPEARING BICYCLIST
Sam Loyd patented this mechanical puzzle in 1896.  You have to use your imagination and your brain to figure this one out!  Thirteen cyclists are on the wheel until you turn it.  Can you explain where the thirteenth cyclist went?  The puzzle is found in the BrainBox.  Share your hypothesis.

Robo-Bee
Will your language skills blossom or wilt? It's up to you as you control the flight of the Robo-Bee through a garden of synonyms, antonyms, spelling, and usage puzzles!  Go to: http://www.wordcentral.com/games/robobee.html
Keep track of the words the bee in your DailyLog, and share five of them and their correct meanings.



BIGbot
Feed the BIGbots! These word-automated machines have quite an appetite, so come prepared with a voracious vocabulary! Good hand and eye coordination is a definite plus!  Go to this site: http://www.wordcentral.com/games/bigbot.html and keep the machine fed.  Keep track of the words that didn’t feed his hunger in your DailyLog, and share five of them and their correct usages.


SPELLING MATCH
Try this spelling matching game:
Choose a grade higher than yours for a fun challenge.  Keep track of your scores in your DailyLog and see how much you can improve.  Try another unit or grade level!  Show your scores, and tell one new word learned.

EINSTEIN:  IMAGE AND IMPACT
Are you still interested in Einstein?  Go to this website to learn more.  There are more photos and his own autobiographical notes.  What more have you learned?  Be sure to share your report after you have looked at all the links.



VERBS AND RABBIT HOLES
Steven Pinker may look like a rock star, but he is actually a linguistics explorer, hunting around sentences and syntax of human language for clues (he calls them “rabbit holes”) to the inner world of the human brain.  Read this article about his adventures found in the SpacePac.  Choose one of the topics he addresses.  Then, write him a letter in your DailyLog.  Explain what you find interesting, what you agree/disagree with, and especially any questions you have.  Show this to an adult.



WELCOME TO YOUR MEMORY! There are many types of memory -- The picture in your mind when you think of your first school, the knowledge that London is the capital of England, the ability to ride a bike or knowing the face of the person you love.
So stretch your brain and test all your different types of memory.
Keep track of your results, and report them.  What can you remember?
 

Are you a good eyewitness?
 Do you remember everything you see, or would you be an unreliable witness? Test yourself in our game.  Keep track of your results in your DailyLog.  http://www.youramazingbrain.org/testyourself/eyewitness.htm
Could you remember the important facts?  How well do you observe the world around you?  Report this experience.


BE HOT!  STAY COOL!
To work well our body systems need the right conditions for tissues and cells to function properly. Homeostasis is the means by which these internal body conditions are kept constant. ?Among the most important things our bodies need to regulate are: temperature, water and salt levels, and the amount of glucose in the blood.  Work through this animated series: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/biology/humansasorganisms/6homeostasisrev1.shtml.  Be sure to take the test bite at the end.  Report how you did!



Brain Injury Challenge
Do you wear a helmet when you ride your bike or roller blade? Then you already know that a helmet is a good way to avoid hurting your head. Head injuries are a kind of trauma, which is a medical term for any major injury to the body resulting from accident or violence.
Imagine that you are working alongside a neurologist who has been called to the emergency room, and the following patients with head injuries come through the door. The doctor will make the final diagnosis, but he wants your input based on what you've learned about the brain. So read each case and decide which part of the brain may have been injured.
How did you do? 
 
CEREBRAL ANIMALS
Are you a cerebral animal?  Try these quizzes to find out how much you know about animal brains:
(Tell everything you have learned about animal intelligence.  Are you as intelligent as you thought?)
Chimp Challenge
Memory Maze
Life of Mammals
Mammal Intelligence;
Life of Mammals Quiz



COMPUTER BRAINS
Will the computer ever become more intelligent than the human brain?  Learn about this important question by reading pages 28 and 29 of Understanding Your Brain.  Then go to: Low Life Labs
to learn all about research and building robotics.  Then go to: Robot
and design and build your own robot.  Run it through the hazard-filled Zones.  How did it do?  Make a record of this activity in your DailyLog.  Share it with an adult.


BRAINS IN HISTORY
Throughout the ages the brain has been a riddle to scientists.  Even today, scientists only understand a fraction of what goes on inside your head.  Find out more about this by reading pages 30 and 31 of Understanding Your Brain.  Then, go to
Brain History
and use its timeline to meander through some of the high-lights (and low-lights) of this great journey of understanding.  Choose an interesting development in the history of the study of the brain and write about it in your DailyLog.  You may want to do more research!  Share your information with an adult.
 
EMOTICONSTRUCTOR
Let the Emoticonstructor “evolve” a face to match your mood!  An emoticon is a face made from punctuation marks and other special characters on your computer keyboard. Emoticons are meant to show an emotion. The cool thing is you're free to use any of the characters on your keyboard.  It's all up to your imagination; )  But another way to construct an emoticon that even your imagination might not think of is with our Emoticonstructor computer, that also uses the principle of evolution.  See how this works.  Go to: Emoticonstructor
Keep a record of your chosen emotions in your DailyLog and show them to an adult.




WHAT HAPPENS TO MY BRAIN…
Your brain controls everything that happens in your body.  Learn more about this amazing organ by reading Usborne’s Science Encyclopedia, pages 366 to 367.  Then use Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to see what parts of your subject’s brain are active when he is experiencing different things.  Go to: 
inside story After you have finished working through this activity, be sure to share what you have learned with an adult.  Perhaps you could make a demonstration!