Science Outreach in K-12 Classrooms

Overview

As educators and researchers at public institutions of higher learning, I believe we have a responsibility to bring our knowledge and experience into our local communities. During my time at Cornell, I've focused on enriching the education of local K-12 students as both a fellow and co-president of GRASSHOPR, Cornell's educational outreach organization for graduate students. I've collected some of my educational outreach work below.

Play-Doh Neurons

To demonstrate how neurons relay information from their dendrites to axons via electrical signaling, our 4th-6th grade students built Play-Doh models of neurons and connected them to an LED circuit, clicking a switch to fire "action potentials." Our full lesson plan can be found here [link once finalized].

Learning Objective

Students will understand how specialized cells in the brain use electricity to send and receive information.

Students collaborate to build their model neuron circuits.
A model neuron built from Play-Doh is connected to a circuit containing an LED stuck in the axon, and a switch and 9V battery out-of-frame. Students click the switch to see an "action potential" (the axon's LED light up).

Specialized Brains for Specialized Behaviors

Brains have evolved to produce behaviors that allow organisms to thrive in their environments. In this lesson, my colleagues and I displayed preserved brains from a variety of organisms including a shark, a midshipman fish, a bat, and others, to demonstrate the diversity of structure (and subsequent function) among organisms across the animal kingdom. Our full lesson plan can be found here [link once finalized].

Learning Objective

Students will explore the correlation between structure and function in a diversity of animal brains.

Outreach through GRASSHOPR at Cornell

Since 2015, I have worked with teachers in local 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classrooms to integrate age-appropriate neurobiology into their science curriculum. Like nearly 60 other graduate students each year, I've been able to build these collaborations via the Graduate Student School Outreach Program (GRASSHOPR) at Cornell, an organization for which I've been on the executive board since 2016 and co-president since 2017. I'm proud that GRASSHOPR annually serves nearly 1,000 K-12 students in 17 local schools. In future years, we are looking to expand our geographic reach and continue to build collaborative partnerships with our teachers.

The graduate students of GRASSHOPR in 2018.