Growing Brains is a developmental neuroscience outreach program that aims to educate young people about their brain’s development and cognition. The program is led by volunteer Institute of Child Development (ICD) graduate students and partners with schools, summer camps, after-school programs, and community groups. Through the program, we hope to inspire children and adolescents to value science and to give them a sense of agency in their own development.
Neuroplasticity is like a superpower that everyone has access to, especially children and teenagers. You can be in charge of creating the experiences that physically shape your brain for the future.
- Keira Leneman & Shreya Lakhan-Pal, Growing Brains Outreach co-founders
Our volunteer ICD graduate students visit classrooms or other learning communities in the Twin Cities metropolitan area to give lessons about the developing brain.
In-person lessons are generally 60 minutes, with virtual sessions lasting 30-45 minutes. Lessons typically target fourth to eighth graders; however, we're happy to adjust the structure and content of our lessons for different age ranges by request.
Generally, each lesson has two parts: a presentation and time for interactive activities.
We aim to make our lessons informative—and fun! We cover basic neuroscience concepts, discuss brain development across time, and explore the power we have over our own brain development.
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to answer:
We use several tools and activities to help bring scientific concepts to life, including:
Photo credit: Lauren Hernandez, Mounds Park Academy
Photo credit: Lauren Hernandez, Mounds Park Academy
Growing Brains was recently featured in the College of Education and Human Development's Connect magazine and on the Market Science wesbite.
Interested in scheduling a lesson? We'd love to hear from you! Lessons typically target students in fourth to eighth grade, but can be adjusted for other age ranges and abilities. In-person lessons run for approximately one hour, with virtual sessions lasting 30-45 minutes. Group sizes range from about 10-60 students. To get the most out of our sessions, we recommend smaller groups of approximately 30 students. Questions? Contact us at growingbrains@umn.edu.
For new lesson requests, please allow at least 2-3 weeks of lead time, so we can appropriately plan and prepare the content of the lesson.