Dissecting minds through neuroscience
Diamond Bar High School’s Neuroscience club ended the year strong, hosting a meticulous and engaging brain-dissection event on April 20 in biology teacher Jessica Wai’s room.
The club held this occasion to give members an opportunity to work hands-on with a real brain, in this case, an authentic sheep’s brain bought from the scientific institute in Nebraska.
“Most of the time, people are only learning neuroscience from videos online or textbooks. But through this event, students got to dissect a real brain and see what’s inside and touch it with their own hands and learn more about the process that goes behind a dissection process,” junior club president Sarah Liu said.
Not only did the event teach the club members how difficult it would be to set up a brain dissection, but cleaning up proved especially grueling, heightening the importance of prior precautions and preparation for the dissection.
“Many students told me that the brain dissecting event definitely helped them confirm their interest in pursuing neuroscience in the future,” said Liu.
The club’s interactive events, as well as any other events they’ve held in general, make them unlike any other club.
“Our events give students an opportunity to have a first-hand look at the core concepts of neuroscience and club,” Liu said.
As of now, the club’s primary goal is to expand their network to external organizations. Liu hopes that in the future they can strengthen their informational database online, which is filled with sources to reference for students’ interests, neuroscience studies, and will help them prepare for competitions.
The Neuroscience club participates in one major contest called the Brain Bee, an international neuroscience competition. However, competing students struggle to find the resources to adequately prepare for this tournament. To combat this problem, the club has started a video lecture series on YouTube for those students to build a strong opportunity of winning.
“I want to continue developing our resources online to help students study for competitions and to learn more online,” said Liu. “Neuroscience Club hopes to expand on these online resources for our members and share them with students all across the world.”
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