What do scientists do?

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What do scientists do?

• Scientists
• Observe Brains, Eyes, Ears, Skull
• Make predictions
• Measure how fast, how large

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What does the brain do?

• Different parts of the brain do different things
• See
• Pay attention and think
• Remember
• Move
• Hear, taste, balance

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A. Seeing - The eye

• Materials
• The Big Model of the Eye
• Cow Eye to dissect
• Flashlight
• Slides
• Activities
• Eye see u slide -gt Flashlight on pupil explain
  function
• Inside eye slide -gt show retina in model in cow
  eye
• Near sighted cataract -gt show lens in model
  in cow eye
• Color vision

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Eye see you
Pupil This is the hole in your eye that lets
light in. It gets bigger in the dark and
smaller with bright light
Iris This is the colored part of your eye
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Looking inside the eye
In photos, the flash lights up the back of the
eye which is red.
This is what they see. The red lines are arteries
that carry blood and oxygen that your eye needs
Doctors use a flashlight with a magnifying glass
to see the back of your eye
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Seeing without eye-glasses
Normal
Near sighted

• For some people things near their eyes look
  clear, but things far away look blurry. These
  people are near-sighted and wear glasses or
  contact lenses that help them see better.
• All babies are near sighted until they are 6
  month olds.
• So if you want a baby to see you clearly, make
  sure to get close to her (but ask mom first!)

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Seeing blurry
Normal

• Inside the eye, there is a lens (a magnifying
  glass). As we grow older, the lens sometimes gets
  dirty. This disease is called cataracts.
  Doctors can do surgery to replace the lens with a
  new one.

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Seeing in Color
all 3 detectors
only 2 detectors
Most people have three different types of color
detectors in their eyes. Some boys have two
types of detectors instead of three. To these
boys, colors look slightly different than to the
rest of us. If you have a hard time seeing the
number 5 in the figure above you might be in that
group. If so, your moms dad may also have a hard
time seeing them. This is because this difference
runs in families, and it is passed through the
genes.
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B. Visual illusions experiences

• Materials
• A brain model
• Slides
• Markers
• Paper
• Activities
• aftereffect -gt Flashlight on pupil explain
  function
• Illusion lt --- gt let kids figure out that they
  should measure with a ruler, if they dont do so,
  gently hint it to them
• Circle illusion idem
• Lincoln face show area in the brain model also
  point to visual areas
• Extra For kids who finish early
• , use markers to experience aftereffect
• Use scissors to create circle illusion

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Stare at the mouth for 30 seconds. Next, quickly
turn your eyes towards some white spot (for
example, a piece of paper). What do you see?
What is going on? Your eyes get tired, that is,
the neurons start sending a weaker signal to the
brain. When you stop looking at it, the signal is
so weak that it is even lower than when seeing
nothing. So you end up seeing the opposite the
white parts look dark.
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Stare at the dot in the center of the USA flag
for 30 seconds. Next, quickly turn your eyes
towards the on the left. What do you see?

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Which line looks longer? Which line is longer?
How can you find out which line is truly the
longest one?
Important lesson Sometimes our intuition is
wrong. Good scientists always measure as a way to
test their hypothesis.
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Which of the two center circles looks larger?
Which one is larger? How can you find out which
center circle is truly the largest one?
Important lesson Sometimes our intuition is
wrong. Good scientists always measure as a way to
test their hypothesis.
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Do you notice anything weird about Lincolns
face? Turn it around to find out
What is going on? Humans are really good at
recognizing faces. We can notice very slight
changes in peoples faces. Also, we see the whole
face at once. That is, you dont need to first
look at the nose, then the eyes and the mouth
before you recognize your mom, right? But when
the face is upside down, it is just like any
other object, we see it in parts instead of as a
whole. So it becomes less obvious that it is
wrong.
Did you know? There is a part of the brain that
specializes in recognizing faces.
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Faces, Faces Everywhere!
Faces are so important to us, and our brain is so
good at noticing them, that we see faces even in
clouds and pancakes!
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Vision and Art

• If you get your eyes out of focus (or you take
  off your eyeglasses), you may see somebodys
  face. Who is he?
• If you still cannot see it, get far away from the
  page, can you see it now?
• This is a picture by Dali, a famous Spanish
  painter

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Vision and Art
Look at the grapes, the leafs, the fruits and
vegetables. Do you see something else? This
painting was made by Giuseppe Arcimboldo more
than 400 years ago!
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Vision and Art
This painting was made by Rene Magritte
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Vision and Art
This painting was made by Andy Warhol Although
the colors are very different, it is easy to see
that is always the same person
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Vision and Art
This painting was made by Rene Magritte
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C. Attention

• Activities In all, it is important to pay
  attention
• Dalmatian dog role of expectations
• Old/young lady ambiguity
• Spot the difference
• Beans
• Stroop task (red in blue)

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Try to find the dog. It is hard the first time,
but easy after you found it once.
What is going on? Once your brain knows what to
look for, it can make guesses and find it. It
can pay attention to the important spots.
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Do you see a young girl or an old lady? Both are
there, which one do you see?
What is going on? Sometimes, things can have two
meanings. By paying attention to one or the
other, we see different things
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Try to find the difference between these two
pictures
What is going on? We only see things if we pay
attention to them.
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One of these beans is not a bean, its a face!
Can you find it?
What is going on? Just like in Where is Waldo?,
we only see things if we pay attention to them.
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Stroop task

• Materials
• stopwatch,
• pencil (to graph)
• Kids work in pairs One reads, the other times
• Instructions
• Name the color of the ink, do NOT read the word
• Results Graph results (see sample)
• Include y-axis (how many seconds), x-axis
  (condition)
• Discussion
• Which was slowest? Why?
• what would happen if the kid doesnt know how to
  read yet? Would he be faster? Slower? It depends?
  Why?
• What would happen if you put 'funny words, like
  poop, and fart. Why

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How many seconds?
red
What type of list?
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D. Memory

• Materials
• A real penny
• A brain model
• Activities
• Penny
• False memory show the hippocampus (remember) and
  the frontal lobe

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Only one of these images of a penny is correct.
Which one is it?
 
 
 Answer Most people have a hard time making
this choice. You need to be able to recognize a
penny when you see one. But you don't need to
remember many details to tell it apart from a
dime or quarter. This sort of test suggests that
you're likely to remember only enough about an
object to let you recognize it in everyday life.
A is the correct image. Now you know! This
activity is from the website of the Museum of
science, art, and human perception in San
Francisco. For more activities, go to
http//www.exploratorium.edu/mind/play.html
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False Memory

• Instructions
• Im going to read a list of words. Try to
  remember them.
• After I read them, you will count to 30.
• When you are done counting, I will read some old
  words and some new words
• Raise your hand when you hear an old word.
• Ready to try?
• Lets start with a practice trial.
• Practice
• List 1 Dog, shoe, mom
• Count to 30
• List 2 Dog, hippopotamus, mom
• Good. Ready to start for real?
• List 1 read, pages, letters, school, study,
  reading, stories, sheets, cover, pen, pencil,
  magazine, paper, words
• List 2 ocean, pencil, apple, house, shoe, book,
  flag, rock, train, hill, music, water, glass,
  school
• Predicted Results
• few hands up for ocean (correct rejection)

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False memory results
How many kids?
What type of word?
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False Memory

• Another example (if you need to kill time)
• List 1 sheets, pillow, mattress, blanket,
  comfortable, room, dream, lay, chair, rest,
  tired, night, dark, time
• List 2 door, tree, eye, song, pillow, juice,
  orange, radio, rain, car, sleep, cat, dream, eat
• Did they say that "sleep" was on list 1? Only
  pillow and dream were on list 1.

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E. Move

• Activities
• Catch a ruler ( dollar bill)
• Trace a maze with left/right hand

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Catch a dollar bill

• Illustrate with a dollar bill trick
• It is easy to catch the dollar bill if you
  release,
• It is hard to catch if someone else releases it.
  Why?
• Catching the bill is like the game, Whisper Down
  the Lane only it all happens inside the body.
• The eye sees the bill drop.
• The eye sends a message to the part of the brain
  that sees.
• From there, it sends the message to the part that
  plans movement.
• From there, it goes to the spinal cord.
• The spinal cord sends a message to the
  hand/finger muscle.
• The finger muscle contracts to catch the ruler.
• Activity see brain poster see parts of brain in
  model

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F. Brains Models

• Activities
• See slides of rat brain (ppt glass)
• See brains of different animals (doc glass)
• See skull

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G. Touch, TasteSmell, Hearing, Balance

• Materials
• Brain model (show motor strip)
• Toothpicks (or anything to gentle touch skin)
• Ear
• Activities
• Touch Two point discrimination
• TasteSmell jelly beans
• Hearing see eardrum (model slide)
• Balance

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Touch two point discrimination

• Kids work in pairs (instructor illustrates first)
• Instructions
• I will touch you with either one or two
  toothpicks, like this
• If you feel one, say one. If you feel two, say
  two.
• Keep your eyes closed
• Instructor touches tip base of index finger
  most likely kid says 2
• Instructor touches same gap in the arm most
  likely kid says 1.
• Repeat with eyes open, so kids see that there is
  always two stimulus
• Interpretation
• there are more nerves in the finger than in the
  arm,
• There is a larger part of the brain devoted to
  feeling fingers than to feeling arms (see
  homunculus)

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TasteSmell

• Instructions
• With eyes closed, plug your nose and pop a jelly
  bean in your mouth.
• Chew 5 times while holding your nose. What do you
  taste?
• Unplug your nose and keep chewing. What flavor do
  you experience?
• Interpretation
• The flavor of food depends on both taste and
  smell
• When you have a cold, food does not have flavor
  (no smell)

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Balance

• lllustrate the three sources of balance (vision,
  joints, inner ear) by asking them to balance on a
  mattress (no joints), after twirling (no inner
  ear), with their eyes closed (no vision) or open
  (vision)
• With eyes closed, they fall

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Hearing
Healthy Eardrum
Ear Infection
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SPARE SLIDES
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Taste (no time for it)

• Taste and flavor are different. While you can
  taste only 5 things sweet, salty, sour, bitter,
  fatty you can identify thousands of flavors.
  This is because your nose adds smell to taste to
  create flavor. We will illustrate this by eating
  some Jelly beans.
• -
• pink bumps

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