The Big Sky Brain Project

描述（由申请人提供）：大天空大脑项目的总体目标是提高蒙大拿州数万名K-12学生的神经科学素养，并增加他们在STEM领域的职业机会。蒙大拿州以其广阔的农村景观、高贫困率和大量的印第安人人口为主，需要新颖的科学教育方法，以适应该州独特的地理、财政和文化挑战。大天空大脑项目团队由神经科学、科学教育和蒙大拿州印第安人教育领域的州和国家领导人组成。为了响应这些独特的区域因素，同时提供严格的教育体验，蒙大拿大学的结构和功能神经科学中心和光谱发现区，大学的动手科学博物馆，将与探索博物馆合作，创建一个世界级的神经科学展览，称为大脑区。本次展览将在新的spectrUM探索区举行，该区域将于2011年秋末在大学附近的一个主要区域购物中心开放。在一个人口不到一百万的州，索斯盖特购物中心每年有700万游客，是蒙大拿州冰川公园和黄石国家公园总和的两倍多。Brainzone将成为spectrUM为当地K-12学生开展的广受欢迎的实地考察项目的组成部分，也将被用于其移动科学项目，该项目将为偏远、服务不足的农村和部落K-12学校带来动手展览。脑区将以四个展品和一个计算机学习实验室为特色，实施以神经科学核心主题为中心的年级特定课程，从大体神经解剖学到细胞神经生理学，再到学习和记忆。与类似的教育展览不同，脑区还将包括一个名为BrainLab的工作实验室，该实验室将容纳研究级脑电图仪器和黑腹果蝇神经生物学的湿实验室。BrainLab将面向公众，由研究生级别的实验室管理人员组成，将用于K-12学生的研究演示，以及来自蒙大拿大学和米苏拉社区医院的研究人员，从高中实习生到K-12教师，再到神经科学教员和临床医生。与米苏拉县公立学校合作，Brainzone将为K-12年级的学生举办实地考察活动，参加特定年级的动手神经科学展览和实验研究。在其他时间，它将对公众开放。在这个五年项目的最后两年，Brainzone展览将与spectrUM的移动科学项目一起旅行，将核心神经科学课程带给生活在蒙大拿州各地的数千名K-12学生，包括那些与世隔绝的农村和部落社区的学生。在五年的资助期限之后，来自大学、结构与功能神经科学中心和spectrUM的承诺机构支持将确保这些独特的教育资源的长期价值、护理和使用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goals of the The Big Sky Brain Project are to increase the neuroscience literacy of tens of thousands of Montana K-12 students and to enhance their opportunities for careers in the STEM field. Montana - with its vast and predominantly rural landscape, high rates of poverty, and large Native American population - requires novel science education approaches that are appropriate to the unique geographical, financial, and cultural challenges of the state. The Big Sky Brain Project team is made up of state and national leaders in the fields of neuroscience, science education, and Montana Indian education. In order to be responsive to these unique regional factors while providing a rigorous educational experience, the University of Montana's Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience and the spectrUM Discovery Area, the University's hands-on science museum, will collaborate with the Exploratorium to create a world-class neuroscience exhibition called the Brainzone. This exhibition will be housed in the new spectrUM Discovery Area, which will open in late autumn 2011 in a major regional shopping mall near the University. In a state with a population of less than a million, Southgate Mall has seven million annual visits - more than double the number of Montana's Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks combined. The Brainzone will be an integral part of spectrUM's popular field trip program for local K-12 students and will also be used in its mobile science program, which brings hands-on exhibits to isolated, underserved rural and tribal K-12 schools. The Brainzone will feature four exhibits and a computer learning lab to implement grade-specific curricula centered on neuroscience core themes ranging from gross neuroanatomy to cellular neurophysiology to learning and memory. Unlike similar educational exhibitions, the Brainzone will also include a working laboratory, called the BrainLab, that will house research-grade EEG instrumentation and a wet lab for Drosophila melanogaster neurobiology. The BrainLab, which will be in full public view, will be staffed by a graduate-level lab manager, and it will be utilized for K-12 student research demonstrations as well as by researchers ranging from high school interns to K-12 teachers to neuroscience faculty and clinicians from the University of Montana and Community Hospital in Missoula. In partnership with the Missoula County Public Schools, the Brainzone will host field trips for K-12 students to participate in grade-specific hands-on neuroscience exhibits and bench research. At other times it will be open to the public. In the final two years of the five-year project, the Brainzone exhibition will travel with spectrUM's mobile science program to bring core neuroscience curriculum to thousands of K-12 students living throughout Montana including those in isolated rural and tribal communities. Beyond the five-year duration of the grant, committed institutional support from the University, the Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience, and spectrUM will ensure the long-term value, care, and use of these unique educational resources.