Brains! More photos

More photos from our brain dissection lab. Here are kids in my other class. I have 8 in the first class and 6 in the second.

Real sheep brain, model of human brain (accurate size).
My closed fist is a bit larger than the sheep brain in the foreground. The antennae looking thing on the bottom of the brain is the optic nerve -- it connects to the retina in the eye and sends information to the occipital lobe, which is in the very back of the head (far left side in the image of the human brain). I always wondered why the temporal lobe (which controls hearing and language processing) is sensibly directly between the ears whereas the occipital lobe, which controls and processes visual input, is in the very back of the brain. What's exciting, is my kids noticed and asked about this. Higher order thinking skills indeed.


Malcolm and Taylor, excited about Neuroscience!
They all took glamor shots with the brain -- isn't that cool! (I'm a nerd, I know!)

Collaboration and Peer-Learning! Here's half my class huddled around the brain, pointing out the lobes we've been studying for over a week!

Yes, Kiemayah, formaldehyde does smell bad!

Hard at work, answering tricky lab questions.