Getting involved
NEUROSCIENCE UNDERGRADUATE SOCIETY (NUS)
NUS is an entirely student-run club for current undergraduate UCLA students who are interested in Neuroscience. Although a majority of our members are Neuroscience majors and minors, students of any major may join. Events include faculty luncheons, neuroscience seminars, lab placement fairs, career and graduate school panels, socials, and many more. Email: nus.uclabruins@gmail.com NUS Facebook Page NUS Website 
PROJECT BRAINSTORM
Neuroscience 192B: Project Brainstorm - K-12 Outreach Project Brainstorm is a class (NS 192B) offered to upper division Neuroscience students at UCLA. In this class, students prepare lessons on various Neuroscience topics, then travel to K-12 classrooms in the Los Angeles area to present their lessons and a series of hands-on activities demonstrating brain anatomy, organization, and function. NS 192B is offered Winter and Spring quarters to UCLA students. For registration information, please contact brainstorm@ucla.edu Description from Schedule of Classes: Seminar, one hour; fieldwork, three hours. Limited to juniors/seniors. Course to be supervised by faculty and teaching assistant advisers. Project Brainstorm is K-12 science education outreach program of Brain Research Institute (BRI) and Neuroscience Ph.D. and undergraduate programs that stimulates interest in science for children and young adults in grades K-12 by providing hands-on learning experiences that emphasize function and importance of brain. Students are expected to prepare age-appropriate lesson plans to be used in Project Brainstorm classroom visits. Students meet on regular basis with supervisors and provide periodic reports of their experience. May not be applied toward major requirements. May be repeated twice for credit. P/NP grading. |
INTERAXON
Interaxon is a student group that was founded in 2006 by a student (Shanna Fang) right after she took one of the first Project Brainstorm courses we taught. She found Project Brainstorm so useful that she decided to create an independent student group to get even more undergraduates involved in disseminating neuroscience to school aged children. The BRI has supported Interaxon both logistically (giving them access to our brains, models and other didactic material) as well as financially (giving them small pots of money to fund certain activities like a yearly science poster day that they host here at UCLA for kids from local schools). As an informal extension of Project Brainstorm, they have greatly expanded the outreach capabilities of the BRI, with school visits every week of the fall, winter and spring quarters (as opposed to the 3-4 school visits that Project Brainstorm has during the winter and spring quarters). You can find all the information on Interaxon (their calendar of activities, deadlines and instructions on how students can sign up to participate in their activities) on their web page. Julia Chornak is the current student president of Interaxon. Email: interaxon@ucla.edu Interaxon Facebook 
HIGH SCHOOL DRUG EDUCATION OUTREACH
Neuroscience 192C: Drugs of Abuse - Conveying Concepts to High School Students Drug Abuse and Society is a special class that trains UCLA senior neuroscience students to present accurate, knowledgeable, and age-appropriate lectures on specific legal and illegal drugs of abuse to high school students. The UCLA students and their instructors visit traditionally underserved high schools to provide both a scientific and policy based education with the aim of both inspiring teenagers who may be interested in a career in addiction and mental health research, and educating teens on the risks of drug use. Description from Schedule of Classes: Seminar, four hours (seven weeks); fieldwork, four hours (three weeks). Enforced requisites: courses M101A, C177. Limited to senior Neuroscience majors. Preparation of students to give accurate, knowledgeable, and age-appropriate lectures in area of drug abuse to students at local high schools. Designed as followup to course C177 where students learned didactic material on mechanisms of action and translational aspects of drugs of abuse. Students meet on regular basis with supervisors and provide periodic reports of their experience. May not be applied toward major requirements. May be repeated twice for credit. Letter grading. |
