Vol. 13 Issue 2

Washington University Review of Health Spring 2020
Breaking the Bubble: Bringing Neuroscience
Education to the St. Louis Community
Writers: Courtney Chan & Harry Arndt | Editor: Heather Chung
| Photographer: Rehan Choudhury
Who wants to touch a
brain?”
I expected several girls to raise their
hands hesitantly and the others to
shy away. Contrary to my expectations,
nearly every girl in the room
raised her hand, their feet a pinch
too short for the lab stools in
Rebstock, hands already grabbing
for the goggles we loaned. Leading
a Sheep Brain Dissection through
Washington University’s neuroscience
club, Synapse, I passed around
forceps, paper towels and brain
anatomy worksheets to the eager
students.
As a collaboration between the
Washington University in St. Louis
(WUSTL) Institute for School
Partnerships (ISP) and the Synapse
Scholars program, the Sheep Brain
Dissection was one of the numerous
mentorship opportunities Synapse
provided to local elementary, middle
and high schools in the surrounding
St. Louis community. This Human
Brain Demo brought around thirty
female students from Hawthorn
Leadership School for Girls to
WUSTL’s campus. As we identified
parts of the brain and fielded
questions about anatomy, college
applications, and gadgets in the
Biology Lab, Synapse Scholars
provided an opportunity for
WUSTL students to connect with
younger students from the greater
community and encourage early
STEM and neuroscience education.
Over a decade ago, Synapse was
founded as an undergraduate club
affiliated with SIGN at the WU
School of Medicine. Nearly tripling
its size in the past decade, the club
aids WUSTL undergraduate students
in their current and future
neuroscience studies by organizing
monthly speaker events, physician
shadowing opportunities, research
panels and student mentorship
events. Moreover, students have the
opportunity to make a lasting
impact on the greater St. Louis
community by volunteering for
educational programs (i.e. Demo
Days, Synapse 101 and Synapse
Scholars) and sports rehabilitation
programs (i.e. dance, martial arts,
swim and open-gym). Students also
have the opportunity to volunteer
with local neuroscience outreach
events, such as the St. Louis Area
Brain Bee (SLABB) and events at the
St. Louis Science Museum.
“Elementary
school students in
particular have a
wonderful openness
to new ideas
if you can get them
to focus for a bit
and engage with
you.”
Working with the ISP, two years
ago, co-presidents Courtney Chan
(WUSTL ‘20) and Eric Song
(WUSTL ‘19) created a tracking
system to evaluate its community
impact, get feedback from local
teachers and improve Synapse’s
outreach. From 2018 to 2019,
Synapse 101, Demo Days and
Synapse Scholars served more than
680 local students, an effort involving
140 WUSTL student volunteers
hosting 78 visits combined. From
2019 to 2020, co-presidents Sid Rana
and Ankit Choudhury continued
collecting this data, with the
programs serving over 4,000 local
students including partnerships
with the St. Louis Science Center,
involving 147 WUSTL student
volunteers hosting 90 visits combined.
These programs not only give
WUSTL students the opportunity to
give back to their communities but
introduce younger students the
chance to ask college students
questions, learn about the brain and
explore a world of neuroscience and
STEM.
The Synapse Scholars program, the
newest of Synapse’s three educational
programs, was founded by
Sophie Zimbalist in Fall of 2017
(WUSTL ‘20). Serving approximately
120 students each year, Synapse
Scholars continues to grow. Reflecting
upon its starting moments,
Sophie recalls that she had “always
been interested in neuroscience and
the brain, so when [she] found out
that Synapse had an education
program that allowed [her] to
engage elementary students in the
community, [she] signed up immediately!”
While Sophie had been
involved in Synapse’s Demo Days
program in previous years, the two
existing educational programs,
Demo Days and Synapse 101, were
directed at elementary and middle
schools.
“The curriculum is
purposely left flexible
so that it provides
students
the time to engage
and explore based
on their own
questions and
interests.”
As a Demo Days volunteer, Sophie
reflects that “elementary school
students in particular have a
wonderful openness to new ideas if
you can get them to focus for a bit
and engage with you. I found that
they loved the activities and were in
awe when we brought in a human
brain that had been donated to us
from the medical school campus.”
Yet she wanted to know whether it
would be possible to sustain and
build upon this enthusiasm for more
than just an hour at an elementary
school level. This sparked her
creation of the Synapse Scholars
curriculum, which she created to
provide a neuroscience education at
a higher level to middle and high
school students. She spent the
summer of 2017 writing lesson
plans from scratch. At first, Scholars
started small, with several trial
visits in the Fall and Spring—by fall
of 2018, it expanded to six visits per
semester.
SLABB participants put their knowledge to the test in a neuroscience exam held
in Washington University’s Rebstock Lecture Hall.
Sophie explains, “[Scholars] works
with schools that have everything
from a basic Missouri State biology
curriculum to a full AP anatomy
and physiology lab classroom. I
wanted students from all backgrounds
and scientific levels to have
a better sense of how their brain
functioned but also how to keep it
healthy. The lesson plans vary in
topic from brain anatomy (with the
famous “real human brain”) to
mental health and even brain
imaging. The curriculum is purposely
left flexible so that it provides
students the time to engage and
explore based on their own questions
and interests.”
The St. Louis Area Brain Bee
(SLABB) has also grown tremendously
since its fruition in 2010 (St.
Louis Area Brain Bee). Founded as
a passion project for faculty advisor
Dr. Erik Herzog, the Brain Bee is an
academic competition in which high
school students’ understanding of
neuroscience is put to the test. The
test consists of a written and an oral
round with the top tester sent to
The National Brain Bee. (Lopez
2019) Turnout met record numbers
in 2019, bringing 58 students to
compete at WUSTL’s campus
(Lopez 2019).
Content on the exams are pulled
from a book called Brain Facts,
which is published by the Society
for Neuroscience. The book is
described as “a primer on the brain
and nervous system,” serving to
introduce students to the field and
perhaps catalyze a long-term
interest (Brain Facts). Synapse
volunteers assist every year to help
run the event, which has produced a
history of young winners. SLABB
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