Brain Awareness Week (BAW)

March 16th – 22nd

BAW is an international campaign dedicated to advancing public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research.

Founded and coordinated by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and its sister organization, the European Dana Alliance for the Brain, BAW is now entering its fourteenth year as a catalyst for public understanding of brain science. The Dana Alliances are joined in the campaign by partners from around the world, including universities, hospitals, patient groups, government agencies, schools, service organizations, and professional associations. 

Brain Awareness Week began in 1996 as a modest effort involving 160 organizations in the United States.  BAW was created to bring together diverse groups from academia, government, professional, and advocacy groups and unite them with a common theme that brain research is the hope for treatments and preventions, and possibly cures, for brain diseases and disorders, and to ensure a better quality of life at all ages.  In 1998, the campaign became international, first as a day and then as a week.  Since that time, BAW has evolved into a powerful global initiative with more than 2,200 partners in 76 countries (as of the 2008 campaign).

During Brain Awareness Week, campaign partners, as diverse as they are, share one thing in common: the desire to convey the wonders of the brain and nervous system and the far-reaching influences and outcomes of neuroscience research to the public through exciting and innovative activities.  These include open days at neuroscience laboratories; museum exhibitions about the brain; lectures on an array of brain-related topics; displays at malls, libraries, and community centers; classroom workshops; and many other activities and programs.

Interested in getting involved? 
Arrange Confident Student to come out for a presentation during the week. 
Schedule Executive Function Specialist Mary Turos to talk about:

• The Teenage Brain:  The Prefrontal Cortex and its Executive Functions
• Incorporate executive functioning skills into the classroom by using neuroscientific, multisensory approaches, Spend less time spent organizing students and more time having students learn!
• Creating an Independent Reader:  Strategies to Motivate Students 
• Parenting Magic:  Setting Goals to Increase Student Achievement
• Why Did You Do That?  Understanding the Teenage Brain
• The Teenage Brain:  The Prefrontal Cortex and its Executive Functions
• Boys and Literacy
• Brain and Gender Differences:  What Science Really Shows
• Multisensory Instruction:  How to Use Your Personal Learning Style to its Maximum Potential

Request Confident Student to deliver a Brain Awareness Week Advocacy Kit.
Packed full of advocacy information, brain facts, community resources and brain games, this kit can help you, your school or your organization promote the importance of brain health and awareness!   Contact the office or email Mary Beth Collins:  mcollins@confidentstudent.com

Suggested Activities for Brain Awareness Week:
Interested in planning a BAW event, but not sure what you can do?  Here are some ideas on how to get your school/organization involved in the campaign:

For Your Elementary, Middle, or High School:

• Present lectures, multi-sensory, hands-on demonstrations, and experiments about the brain to students.
• Consider incorporating daily brain facts and/or brain fitness tips in your school-wide announcements throughout Brain Awareness Week.  Create a bulletin board display about Brain Awareness Week and post it in a high traffic area of your school.
• Organize a brain art, essay, or drama competition for your students.  Choose a topic that is relevant and of interest to a younger audience.
• If you are a science teacher, incorporate Brain Awareness Week into your curriculum by assigning students a project to create brain-related lesson plans on a topic of their choice.  The students can then present their lesson plans to their classmates or to younger students.
• Coordinate a shadow program.  Local high school students can shadow neuroscience faculty and students, and discover what it means to be a neuroscientist and why it is important to study the brain.
• 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 Web site or contact Dr. Norbert Myslinski of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry at nmyslinski@umaryland.edu.  The United States National Brain Bee will be held March 20th-21st, 2009, University of Maryland Medical School, 685 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD.  In order to compete in the US National Championship, a student must win one of the Local Brain Bees. Students may only compete in one Local Bee per year.
  

For Your Community:

• Contact your local radio and television stations to see if they would incorporate a brain-related segment into their programming schedule during Brain Awareness Week.  Volunteer your organization as a resource for speakers, topics, and content.
• Set up and staff an exhibit table at a local hospital, doctors’ office, community center, or shopping center and distribute brain-related information and materials. 
• If your organization is a hospital, or has a working relationship with a hospital, recommend that grand rounds be scheduled during Brain Awareness Week to provide continuing education to physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals about breakthroughs in the treatment of neurological diseases and disorders.
• If your organization is a research facility, consider holding an “open lab” for local high school and university audiences or the general public.
• Use Crossword Puzzles, Brain Quizzes, Anagrams, and Scrambles as fun activities for your audiences at the start of your program or during a break in your activities.
• Invite your local government representatives to participate in Brain Awareness Week. 
• Display fact sheets and BAW event notices and other materials on bulletin boards in libraries, hospitals, local churches, synagogues, gymnasiums, grocery stores, parks and recreation departments, health clinics, universities, and other public places. 
• Team up with local businesses to sponsor classes and workshops for employees to raise awareness about brain function and fitness, brain diseases and disorders.
• Write your local government representatives encouraging their support of brain research.
• Write an article about Brain Awareness Week and the importance of brain research to your constituents for inclusion in your newsletter. Even articles which appear post-campaign will help spread the word about this important effort.
• Include notices about Brain Awareness Week with employees’ paychecks and newsletters.  Use this as a means to promote BAW activities taking place in your community.
• Write letters to the editors of your local newspapers about the importance of brain research to your constituents.  Encourage your constituents to do the same.
• Include an advertisement about Brain Awareness Week in your newsletter.
• Run a Brain Quiz or Mind Boggle in your newsletter.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
Future Brain Awareness Week Dates:
March 15-21, 2010
March 14-20, 2011
March 12-18, 2012