Help me give my students really cool Do-It-Yourself neuroscience equipment from Backyard Brains
$1,892 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My students are 11th and 12th graders from a very ethnically and socioeconomically diverse urban school district. It is this diversity that makes our school and students a special place. These students are wonderful kids with insightful questions and college aspirations. My anatomy and physiology classes are designed to teach students about the fascinating world of the human body. Neuroscience is a large topic in my class and we spend much time on learning about muscle and nerve physiology, how impulses are carried along nerves, and the effects of toxins and drugs on the communication between muscles and neurons. And while we use some computer animations, draw models, and try to act out how action potentials work, it just isn’t the same as real, live, and observable phenomenon that’s occurring with their own nerve and muscle electricity.
My Project
A few years ago at a National Association of Biology Teachers conference, I came across a booth by Backyard Brains. They were demonstrating how to use a “spiker” box to record action potentials with an iPad. Really neat stuff! I came back to school with aspirations of obtaining equipment for my anatomy classes but there were no funds available. So I resorted to showing video demos from the Backyard Brain website, especially the Human-Human Interface which allows one students brain to control another students muscle movement in their arm. Getting a Human-Human Interface to actually demo in class would promote inquiry skills and provide excitement about neurobiology and the future of prosthetic limbs. I would like to have a classroom set of muscle spiker boxes for students to learn about the electrical activity of their muscles. In addition, I would like to get one heart and brain spiker box so students can view and record the action potentials of the heart (EKG) and the slow rhythms of their brain (EEG) using a smartphone, tablet, chromebook or computer.
My students deserve the opportunity to use cool, hands-on technology to advance their knowledge of the nervous system and perhaps pursue a field in neuroscience at college.
With this DIY equipment from Backyard Brains, my students can experiment with their own muscle responses and action potentials as well as view them on screens.
In addition, many of my students are taking AP Psychology classes where they study about the brain and physiological psychology. These kits can help bridge the gap between what they learn in my class and AP Psychology and open doors for college aspirations. I think these kits can help show students that they can do college level work and be the next leaders in finding cures for mental illnesses
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Hoxley and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
