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Saturday, 31 August 2019

Room 5's visit by a Neuroscientist - Josaia's recount


On Wednesday we had Brigid, a Neuroscientist, visit (us) Room 5,  A Neuroscientist studies the
brain to help solve sickness (the) to do with your brain, like forgetfulness or a stroke. 


She gave us activities that included testing our minds. We had to get a shirt and we had to use one
hand to try to do the buttons up. My time was one minute and three seconds with my right hand
but for my left hand, Twas a minute and a half. The  activity was about seeing if both of your hands
were equal, but the only way that's possible is if you are ambidextrous. Being ambidextrous makes
your brain ten percent bigger than usual.


The next activity was trying to trace a star without looking at our hands but we had to look  in the
mirror. That really was a challenge because by looking in the mirror different movements were the
opposite of where we
wanted to go,  left was right and right was left, up was down, down was up. This was so much of a
challenge. When I used my dominant hand, this was not  any more of a challenge, the thing was the
mirror was showing us the opposite direction so I was getting confused. Also when I took my
marker off the star, I couldn’t put it back on to the right spot.


The next activity was holding a brain and learning some facts about it, but we all knew
some already.  I learnt some new facts about the brain like 100 billion neurons are in a
baby when it is born, but it starts to lose those neurons as it is getting older. We realised that
monkey brain is almost as big as your hand if you were a kid, but an adult needs two for it to be
as big. We didn’t hold a slippery brain that could have diseases.The brains we held had been
injected with a serum that makes the brain as hard as plastic We learnt some interesting facts
but the thing I loved to do, was holding a brain. 


Right after we finished all the activities we got to ask questions. I asked so many like, 
How long does the brain take to form into plastic?’ The answer was a week and a half.


I asked so many questions I just stopped for one minute to ask more but then the bell rang then
we went home “ that was the best day ever. 
 To read more visit Josaia's site!

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