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| A "thinking cap" |
By: Rachael Stowe
Students in Anatomy and Physiology are creating brain thinking caps, or small brain models to wear on their head, in order to help them learn the different sections of the brain.
This is a continuation of their nervous system unit. So far, the students have learned about the three main functions of the nervous system (sensory, integration, and motor), the different sections of the nervous system, neurons and their parts, and the action potential (or the way that signals travel throughout the brain and nervous system). Now, the students are moving onto the brain itself and the parts of the brain.
The brain thinking caps are colored and labeled with important sections of the brain, like the four lobes of the brain (frontal, temporal, occipital and parietal), the speech and language area, the visual area, the working memory and judgment areas, and the auditory area. These areas are crucial to brain function and are essential to know when learning the brain.
The frontal lobe is located at the front of the brain and contains control centers for important functions like motor function, memory, judgment, problem-solving, language comprehension, and speech. The temporal lobe is located on the side of the brain and controls smell, speech/language and hearing. The occipital lobe is located on the back of the brain and controls sight and association. The parietal lobe is located on the center top of the brain and controls senses, speech/language, and taste.
These four major lobes of the brain control essentially every basic and complicated function and movement of the human body. Because of this, learning and understanding these lobes is essential to a full comprehension of the nervous system as a whole. Once these four lobes are memorized and understood, students can start to identify the connections between the brain/nervous system and other human body systems that have already been learned, like the muscular system.
Having these brain thinking caps as a resource and a way to learn the brain is proving to be very helpful to the students. One student said that “Participating in projects like these really helps give me a visual of what I’m learning, which improves my learning overall.” Another spoke about how “hands-on learning helps to further develop their understanding of topics, especially in Anatomy, because of the complex parts and processes that are required to be fully learned and understood. These projects help me determine the connections between all parts and systems of the body and that helps me to see the human body system as a working machine of sorts, and not just as a variety of different parts each controlling their own thing.”
Projects like these brain thinking caps are just another way that STEM infuses hands-on opportunities into everyday learning.
