NEWS INDEX Archives 2004 May

Turn on your neurons at the Children's Museum

Jim Barlow, Life Sciences Editor
217-333-5802; jebarlow@uiuc.edu

5/11/04

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Neuroscientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign invite children and their families to learn about their brains at the fourth annual Brain Awareness Day from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. May 23 (Sunday) at the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum, 356 N. Neil St., Champaign.

Admission to the museum that day will be free. At this popular community event, participants have the opportunity to perform hands-on experiments, see real brains and explore how brains from different animals solve everyday problems.

“Brain Awareness Day is a way to make neuroscience accessible to the whole community,” says Donna Korol, a professor of psychology and of the Neuroscience Program at Illinois. “Promoting neuroscience in the community rouses interest in kids who may not have considered themselves scientists.”

Pages for All Ages, a bookstore in Savoy, will provide coupons to people attending the Brain Awareness Day that will be good for a discount on children’s science books.

Brain Awareness Day is sponsored by the campus Neuroscience Program and the Society for Neuroscience through its nationally promoted “Brain Awareness Week.