LYCOMING COLLEGE

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Allison Batties, a senior biology major at Lycoming College, has been chosen for a newly-established Society for Neuroscience Brain Awareness Week Student Travel Award. In October, Batties and Dr. Mary Morrison, an assistant professor of biology at Lycoming, will attend the society’s annual meeting in Chicago to present their poster, titled “Brains are us! Learning by teaching: neuroscience education in elementary schools with undergraduates as activity leaders.”

Batties was selected for the award based on her involvement during the spring semester in Morrison’s neurobiology class, which visited the talented and gifted class taught by Justin Ross at Curtin Middle School in Williamsport. Five times during a six-week period, Batties and other members of the class conducted interactive activities with the middle school students to demonstrate the basics of brain function and sensory awareness. The activities were based on the Society for Neuroscience pamphlet “Neuroscience Core Concepts,” and on material learned in Morrison’s neurobiology and Dr. Katherine Hill’s physiological psychology classes and labs. Hill is an assistant professor of psychology at the College.

“Allison was the main author of her group’s community service neuroscience outreach activity,” said Morrison. “She stood out as the most involved and most excited to take part, with the most original ideas. Allison has great potential as a scientist and educator.”

According to Morrison, the middle school students learned about comparative brain anatomy of different species, functions of the different lobes of the human brain, visual illusions, helmet safety, structure of the eye, neural signaling and the wiring pattern of our sensory systems. They put this information to use while sculpting their own model brains out of clay, labeling the brain’s lobes on swim caps, analyzing illusions, constructing “helmets” to protect raw eggs from impacts, dissecting cow eyes, making a model of a synapse using the entire class in action, and conducting sensory deprivation experiments in their classroom.

“Taking this project, ‘Build a Brain,’ to the local middle school gave me one of my first opportunities to interact with and teach younger students,” said Batties, a native of Royersford, Pa., who is serving this summer as a research intern at the National Institutes of Health - National Cancer Institute. “It was so satisfying to see how much the students learned from our presentation and to watch them use their newly-learned knowledge to build a brain of their own out of clay.”

Launched in 1996, the Brain Awareness Week campaign has united the Society for Neuroscience with The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and a coalition of more than 1,200 science, advocacy and other health organizations that share an interest in elevating public awareness of brain and nervous system research.


Batties works with the talented and gifted class at Curtin Middle School to demonstrate the basics of brain function and sensory awareness.	From left: Dr. Mary Morrison, assistant professor of biology at Lycoming; Justin Ross, teacher at Curtin Middle School; and Dr. Katherine Hill, assistant professor of psychology at Lycoming.