Ned the Neuron: mobile, interactive neuroscience education for kids

描述(申请人提供)：Kizoom正在创造一个令人兴奋的令人难忘的神经元角色世界，以启发学龄儿童认识和发展他们的大脑。K-12公立学校的课程没有强调神经科学，而且特别缺乏适合7-11岁儿童学习神经科学的工具。如果获得资金，我们将为移动电子媒体开发一套独特的教育材料，以配合我们的首发电子书Ned the Neuron，这是一个关于牢固植根于神经生物学的有趣神经元角色的故事，我们目前正在制作这本书。这一新的资源捆绑包将使用激励神经元虚拟化身系统和尖端移动交互(触摸屏、加速计等)。让孩子们对神经科学感到兴奋，并向他们介绍关于他们大脑如何工作的核心概念。我们的目标是：1.利用真实的科学数据、科学家的简历和多层次的知识开发综合课程 Ned the Neuron故事书将成为有效的教育工具；2.开发一种新颖的神经元虚拟化身系统-NeuroMe-通过该系统，儿童将在教育游戏和课程的过程中获得分数，使他们能够成长和发展他们自己的个性化神经元性格，这将进一步激励学习；以及3.直接在儿童中测试我们的产品，以确保我们的方法确实提高了目标年龄段儿童对神经系统的兴趣和知识。在第二阶段，我们将大幅扩展我们提供的教育电子书和游戏，以涵盖神经科学的各种主题，并为我们的神经元化身系统开发一个社交网络组件-Build-A-Brain-在其中，孩子们将在一个大规模的多玩家在线大脑--一个真正的社交网络--中与其他孩子的神经元化身形成连接(“突触”)，以学习神经科学。通过激励和促进儿童理解和欣赏他们自己大脑的生物学，我们将鼓励下一代培养这个重要的器官。通过在我们的应用程序中描述真实和多样化的积极科学家榜样，并特别注意 对于女性和少数族裔榜样，我们将增加对这一主题和其他STEM主题的兴趣。通过激励孩子们了解他们自己和他们周围的世界，我们将促进未来的科学事业。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Kizoom is creating an exciting world of memorable neuron characters to inspire school age children to know and grow their brains. Neuroscience is not emphasized in the K-12 public school curriculum and there is a particular lack of kid-friendly learning tools on neuroscience for 7-11 year olds. If funded, we will develop a unique set of educational materials for mobile electronic media to accompany our premiere eBook Ned the Neuron, a story about fun neuron characters firmly rooted in neurobiology, which we are currently producing. This new bundle of resources will use a motivating neuron avatar system and cutting edge mobile interactions (touch-screens, accelerometers, etc.) to get children excited about neuroscience and introduce them to core concepts about how their brains work. We aim to: 1. Develop integrated lessons with real scientific data, scientist bios, and multi-level educational games, to turn our Ned the Neuron storybook into an effective educational tool; 2. Develop a novel neuron avatar system - NeuroMe - through which children will earn points as they progress through the educational games and lessons allowing them to grow and develop their own personalized neuron character, which would further motivate learning; and 3. Test our products directly with kids to ensure that our approach does indeed raise interest in and knowledge of the nervous system in children of our target age group. In Phase II we will substantially expand our offering of educational eBooks and games to cover various topics in neuroscience, and develop a social networking component to our neuron avatar system - Build-A- Brain - wherein children will form connections ("synapses") with other kids' neuron avatars as they learn about neuroscience in a massively multi-player online brain - a true social NETWORK. By motivating and facilitating children to understand and appreciate the biology of their own minds, we will encourage the next generation to nurture this vital organ. By depicting real and diverse positive scientist role models in our applications, with particular attention paid to female and minority role models, we will increase interest in this and other STEM subjects. And by inspiring children to learn about themselves and the world around them we will promote future careers in the sciences.