Drugs and the Brain, and Animal Intelligence

During this unit, we also discussed the effect of various drugs on the brain. Here are some interesting animations showing the effect of alcohol and other drugs on neurotransmission.

And we talked about the brains and nervous systems of animals; how they differ from and are similar to our own.

We loved this video of a smart crow doing a multi-part puzzle!

And thought these NOVA movies were interesting too (with the usual caveats; NOVA always has a tendency towards sensationalism):

How smart are animals? 
What are animals thinking?

We especially liked the part in the second video where it shows evidence of altruistic behavior in mice and monkeys. Fascinating!

Stroop Effect, Conservation of Liquids, Mirror Neurons

A few things I had pictures for, that didn't fit in on my other posts:

We tried out the "conservation of liquids" test on Daisy, who is right on the cusp of that developmental stage. (Children under about 5 are unable to make this mental leap. When they see two identical glasses of water that are equal in amount, and then they watch you pour the water from one of the glasses into a taller glass, they still say that the taller glass has "more water.") Daisy, as expected, didn't understand that the amounts of water were still equal even though one looked taller. The boys were very delighted to see evidence of this phenomenon before their very eyes! :)

We also really liked doing the "Stroop Test," which involves first reading a paper like this:

and then one like this:

The trick is, you have to say the COLORS of the words, rather than the words themselves, on both images. You time yourself doing both versions and then compare your times. For a pre-reader (Daisy and Junie) it's very easy and there is no conflict! They just say the colors of the words. But once your brain is able to interpret what the words mean, the meaning and the color interfere with each other on the second image and your time slows way down! If you try the same test but this time read the word instead of saying the colors, most people have improved times. This shows that the brain prioitizes meaning over color (and understandably so).

The children loved doing this test! They thought it was so strange and funny.

One more note: this unit stretched over Valentine's Day, so on that day we had a little party and made valentines and homemade oreos (with pink frosting, of course), and then we talked about empathy and love and how those emotions help us understand and be kind to other people. We watched this interesting video about "mirror neurons" as part of that discussion.

Memory

We had a lot of fun learning about memory and working on tricks to improve our memories! We learned about mnemonic devices and practiced using them to memorize things. We played this game of "what is on the tray" (you look at the tray for 3 minutes, then take it away and have 5 minutes to write down what was on it). After doing our best to remember (we could get 7-10 of the 20 things), I told a story that incorporated all the objects. Then we tried again, and ALL of us (even me!) were able to remember all 20 objects! Amazing.

Then we picked some other things to memorize, and came up with our own mnemonics. Abe memorized the first 20 digits of pi, which he now enjoys spouting off at random times. :)

We did the same maze a few different times, to observe how much our times improved the 2nd and 3rd times through. Our brains are able to learn and improve so quickly!

I relied heavily on my old Psychology textbook for this unit (Meyers in Modules! I love it!) and it was really fun to relearn a lot of the things I found so fascinating in high school and college. I loved my psychology and Human Development classes.

We watched these two video clips from NOVA:

Memory vs intelligence and

How Memory Works

This post about short-term memory and long-term memory is really interesting

This video of memories forming is cool also!

This page has some great resources on memory.

We played "the eyewitness" game as described at that link---I had Sam come into the room (he was working from home that day) several times while we were having school, and do several very strange things. He changed clothes between appearances, and did things like whistling, putting things over his head, moving objects around, muttering to himself, etc. But he was kind of unobtrusive about it, so though most of us looked up when he came in, we didn't comment or otherwise engage with him. Later on, I asked the children to write down everything they remembered about what Daddy was wearing, what he had done while he was in the room, etc. It was HILARIOUS to read how vastly differing these "eyewitness" accounts were! And it showed us how very unreliable our memories can be, especially when we aren't deliberately choosing to encode information.

We also enjoyed this game (from the same website):

Sometimes your brain makes up its own memories. Try to "implant" a memory by asking people to remember the words on list 1. Wait about five minutes, then probe their memory by asking them which words on list 2 they remember.
List 1: read, pages, letters, school, study, reading, stories, sheets, cover, pen, pencil, magazine, paper, words
List 2: house, pencil, apple, shoe, book, flag, rock, train, ocean, hill, music, water, glass, school
Did they say that "book" was on list 1? Only pencil and school were on list 1.
Try these words:
List 1: sheets, pillow, mattress, blanket, comfortable, room, dream, lay, chair, rest, tired, night, dark, time
List 2: door, tree, eye, song, pillow, juice, orange, radio, rain, car, sleep, cat, dream, eat
Did they say that "sleep" was on list 1? Only pillow and dream were on list 1.
Make up your own lists and see if you can create a false memory.

The Placebo Effect

We spent a day talking about Pain---what causes it, what it is for, pain management strategies, etc---and along with that we discussed the placebo effect.

Early on in the lesson I told the children how it had been proven that chocolate contained chemicals that increased people's ability to jump high. (I made it sound more convincing than that. :)) I said that there was a small, but measurable, effect that could be observed even right after eating chocolate. Then I said we would test it ourselves. I told the children to jump up as high as they could and touch the highest place they could reach on the wall. We marked their highest touches with tape. Then I gave them each a chocolate kiss to eat. Afterwards, I measured their jumps again---and every one of them was able to jump higher than the first time!

Then I told them they had just seen the placebo effect in action. Chocolate doesn't have any jump-improving properties (sad groans from the children) but the mind DOES have power over the body! Fascinating! We also watched this video (warning: there are two swear words in this video, but one is about 5 seconds in and the other is about 5 seconds before the end, so they are easily avoided) about the placebo effect.

Here is an interesting article we read about the placebo effect
We also took this opportunity to discuss "pseudoscience" and how to be on the lookout for it. Funny article here.

Vision and Perception

Seb made this "3-D" Rubick's Cube, using perspective to make it look more real. He got the idea from this video.

We had a unit entirely on Illusion last year, and it was fun to revisit and expand on some of the optical illusions we talked about then, for our study of Vision and Perception. We watched this short video on "Magic and the Brain," and talked about why it is that our brain interprets the world the way it does, to allow it to be fooled. Our brains are so amazing! We realized that again and again during this unit.

We really liked this movie called "The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes," about a blind boy who uses echolocation to move and navigate the world. He does amazingly well! But the movie also brought up some interesting ideas about self-sufficiency and what constitutes real success in life. We recommend it!

Here it is from the side; you can see how elongated it actually is.

The Cerebellum: Balance, Muscle Coordination, and Proprioception

We had a great time studying the cerebellum, which coordinates muscle movement and balance. We also learned the new word "proprioception." It refers to the body's ability to keep track of itself---to know, for example, where your arms are in physical space. (It's why you can touch your nose or your knee accurately, even when your eyes are closed.)

We also discussed other senses besides "the five senses"---things our body can sense, like gravity, motion, posture, heat, cold, pain, direction.

This post has some good ideas about activities that use balance and coordination:

Balance – You want your child to be able to balance and keep control of their body – it is key to coordination. What can you do? Spinning, bouncing, somersaults and cartwheels are great ways to develop balance. Encourage your kids to walk on curbs, on lines, balance beams and walk toe to heel and keep their balance. Standing on one leg, then hopping on one leg is also great! When they are ready for a new challenge – have them close their eyes! 

Body Awareness – It is important for children to be aware of their bodies! Kids who aren’t will bump into everything, and have poor posture. Some will pull on their clothing and even bounce on their toes when walking. How to help? When these kids are moving challenge them to move in certain ways. "Simon Says" is a great way for kids to mimic lots of movement and be aware of where their body is in space. Have kids bounce and jump while staying in one place. Hopscotch is a great way for kids to work on accurately moving their body and placing their feet.  

We did some of these same types of things---balancing on lines, walking with books on our heads, hopping, etc.

Junie and Daisy really loved doing this!

We also tried a bunch of "body illusions" (some good lists are here and here). These are really fun to try---the children LOVED them.

Our last activity was going to play at a playground and give our cerebellums a workout! :) As it was a very cold day, we did this indoors at the Carl's Jr. playground, which was extreeeeemely exciting to the children (they are always pointing it out wistfully as we drive by). We had a great time!

And this happened (Goldie wanted to get in on the climbing fun!)

Hooray for the cerebellum!

Fake Smiles; The Lie Game

During our discussion of the limbic system and emotions, we talked about body language and facial expressions, and we took pictures of each child giving a "real" (tried to get real ones, by making them laugh, but I'm not sure it always worked too well) and a fake smile. Then we mixed up the pictures to see if we could tell the difference. It's all in the eyes, apparently. They should be squinched, but not too squinched. :)

Curse those "scented markers" that smell like fruit or whatever! My children always have marker on their noses now.

Seb expounds upon a (probably false) point

I also, and it's possible I may regret this, taught the children what I have always called "the Lie Game," but maybe it's has another name? Here is how you play:

1. Each person writes down, in just one sentence, a true thing they've done or experience they've had---preferably something kind of unique or strange or memorable, and something that no one else knows about. Usually you want each person to write down 3-4 of these experiences, each on a separate strip of paper. Then gather all the strips, folded, in a bowl so no one except the moderator can see them. Some examples are things like, "I saw Steve Young" or "I broke a drinking fountain" or "I found $10" or "I got hit by a bird."

(Note: When you're all in the same family, and everyone is young and so no one ever does anything without anyone else knowing about it, it's a bit tricky finding experiences to use. But it can be done. The older boys could use things they'd done in scouts or choir, for example, and you can also use things that are kind of small and generic, like "I lost my CTR ring.")

2. The moderator (that would be me) pulls one of the strips out of the hat and calls up three people ("the liars?" I guess I'll call them "the talkers," since one of them isn't lying), one of whom is the person who REALLY WROTE the experience. The moderator reads the experience out loud.

3. The guessers (everyone BESIDES the three talkers) then ask questions of the three talkers, about the experience. "When did this happen?" "How did you do it?" "Where were you?" The three talkers all answer the questions AS IF THEY WERE THE PERSON WHO HAD THE EXPERIENCE. Two, of them, in other words, are lying. They have to talk convincingly about what happened, and the object of the game is to make the guessers believe YOU are the real person who wrote down the experience.

It's a game, in other words, that teaches you to be a good and convincing liar. Hmm. But I love this game! And the children really liked it too. Sebby and Abe were quite unnervingly good at it. Daisy was really funny---she kept saying things like "It was when I went to Cub Scouts" that were totally not believable, but were cute. :)

Malachi looks skeptical

One more thing we did on this subject was learn the names and talk about different phobias---very entertaining. You can find a large list of phobias (phobiae?) here.

Homeostasis Machines

This one is Seb's crystal-growing machine

We learned about homeostasis and positive and negative feedback cycles, and then I had the children design a machine using the principles of homeostasis. I am fairly sure these wouldn't work in real life, but they looked really cool and I had fun listening to the boys tell me about them. :)

Here is a video about homeostasis.

Abe's greenhouse

Seb's roller coaster

Motor and Sensory Neurons Body Tracing; Reflexes

I remember my brother Philip doing "body tracing" art in 5th grade---they just drew pictures of themselves wearing the clothes they were wearing, life-size. I thought it was SO cool. So, we decided to do the same here, but draw the internal view instead. :) We added two colors of yarn, one to represent the sensory nerve pathways going up toward the brain, and one to represent the motor nerve pathways coming back from the brain and spinal cord to direct muscle movement. We talked about interneurons and autonomic nerves too, but not everyone included those on his or her picture.

These pictures all turned out taller-than-life. Probably because the tracing was very, very difficult with such TICKLISH children. They couldn't hold still while being traced around (very gently, I might add!) to save their lives!

We also did some reaction time and reflex tests, as outlined in this video and this site, and of course we hit our knees with my drumsticks a lot, to test our reflexes. We love doing that.

Seb got really complicated with his. As you can see, his finger has just touched a candle flame, so he's got some reflex action going on as well.

Daisy was just happy to be included (I love how she drew her eyes and mouth on top of her brain)

Junie just got a picture, no nerve pathways. My goodness that drawing is alarming! Sam said it was because she colored her eyes yellow, but I think it has more to do with how I drew her face. *shudder*

Malachi "really just LOVES the digestive system" (his words) (??) and so wanted to include the autonomic nerves and some internal organs.

Seb + Seb

Sheep Brain Dissection

We got a chance to see a lot of the structures we'd learned about when we dissected this sheep's brain! I got it here (totally worth getting the kit as opposed to just the brain, as it comes with a disposable scalpel and I would have DIED if I had to use one of my kitchen knives!), and it said they used some improved process of preservation so the formaldehyde smell wouldn't be so strong, but, formaldehyde is formaldehyde I guess. Whew. It is not a smell I enjoyed being reminded of; it brings back fetal pig dissections and cadaver labs from my high school days, which I was always interested in but also sick to my stomach during. However! We are made of sterner stuff these days, so we soldiered on. Abe did the honors:

while the rest of us looked on with great interest.

That dura mater really is durable! It was hard to slice through.

We were excited to observe so many of the things we'd seen in books, including the clear difference between grey and white matter,

And several of the inner structures. The cerebellum is my favorite. It's so neatly lined and cauliflowery!

Brain hats (cerebral cortex)

We loved making this brain hat (UPDATE: if that link won't work for you, try this: Go to the link here: https://ellenjmchenry.com/ and go to "Free downloads--> Human Body". Then scroll down and under "brain" you will see a link for "brain hemisphere hat." Hope that works for you!) while we talked about parts of the brain! It just shows the functions of the cortex (we covered internal structures separately) but we made it early on in the unit and referred to it often throughout.

The hats were easy to make. Just print and cut out and tape together. Download is here.

When we talked about the parts of the brain, we also did this activity that shows the importance of the cerebrospinal fluid, the meninges, and the skill. Also what happens when you get a concussion! :)

Ooh, and while we're on the subject of brain hemispheres, you really should watch this video from The Happy Scientist of "Kneesy Earsy Nosey." First watch this from Laurel and Hardy, then watch the Happy Scientist explain why it's so hard to cross the midline! We all resolved to get good at doing this, but none of us have (yet). :)

More brain structures (I told you my children liked diagrams)

Wondering why my children always seem to be dressed as animals? They just . . . are.

This was Junie's magnum opus. She spent an hour coloring it so neatly. I quite like it.

Since the hats have since been thrown out, I promised the children I would post pictures of every single precious one. :)

Neurotransmitters

I've always thought neurotransmitters were so cool---what a clever way to transmit electrical impulses across what is, essentially, a repeatedly-broken circuit, right? We watched the animations on this page

and read some good explanations about neurotransmitters here and the action potential here. We drew lots of diagrams (because my kids like diagrams).