Brain Awareness Week
Exciting Activities for Kids

Event Ideas

Brain Awareness Week is a great time to get kids excited about brain science! Here are just a few activity suggestions for younger audiences.

General Ideas:

• Set up and staff an exhibit table at your school, community center, library, or shopping mall with the Dana Foundation’s free handouts. Print and share our fact sheets and puzzles.
• Ask your school or local library to organize a Brain Awareness Week display with books and reference material about the brain or offer to set up your own display.
• Organize a brain fair with hands-on activities, games, and experiments. Invite local colleges/universities and disease advocacy groups to participate.
• Organize a brain art, essay, poetry, music, or drama competition on a brain-related theme for local schoolchildren.
• Organize a film festival featuring movies about the brain. Some popular films include “Finding Dory,” “Inside Out,” and “Awakenings.” Follow each film with a discussion.

Ideas for Teachers:

• Present one of the Dana Foundation’s lesson plans. Topics include neuroanatomy, brain injury/prevention, memory, optical illusions, and depression. Each lesson includes an engaging classroom activity!
• Use one of the Dana Foundation’s puzzle packets as a classroom activity. The puzzles are free and available for download.
• Incorporate daily brain facts or brain fitness tips in your school announcements during BAW. Use the Dana Foundation’s fact sheets and Glossary as a resource.
• Assign students a project about the brain, such as creating poster presentations, bulletin board displays, or videos. Have students present their projects to their classmates or to younger students in your school.
• Watch an episode of the University of Washington’s BrainWorks video series with students and teachers, and use the viewer guides for a class discussion.
• Use the Society for Neuroscience’s Find a Neuroscientist search engine to locate a scientist in your area to speak to your class or school about the brain.

Ideas for Scientists:

• Visit local schools to present lectures, hands-on activities, demonstrations, and experiments about the brain to students.
• Contact after-school programs in your community (Boys & Girls Clubs, Girl/Boy Scouts, etc.) and volunteer to give a presentation about the brain to participating children.
• Hold lab tours for local students to excite them about the research being done in their community and inspire them to pursue careers in neuroscience.
• Contact local schools to determine if there will be any science fairs during March. Volunteer your institution as a resource for students wishing to do science fair projects on the brain.
• Create traveling displays or interactive exhibits on the brain and present them at local schools, community centers, libraries, shopping malls, and other public spaces.
• Get involved in the International Brain Bee, a live Q&A competition that tests the neuroscience knowledge of high school students. For more information, visit the official International Brain Bee website.
• Partner with a science museum to present exhibits, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and experiments about brain structure, function, and diseases and disorders. Science museums often have extensive contacts at local schools and can help draw this audience to your events.