Neural Engineering for Secondary Science Classrooms (Resource Exchange)
- Conference
- Location
-
Salt Lake City, Utah
- Publication Date
-
June 23, 2018
- Start Date
-
June 23, 2018
- End Date
-
July 27, 2018
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
-
Pre-College Engineering Education
- Tagged Topic
-
Diversity
- Page Count
-
3
- DOI
-
10.18260/1-2--30834
- Permanent URL
-
https://peer.asee.org/30834
- Download Count
-
423
Paper Authors
Kristen Clapper Bergsman University of Washington
Kristen Clapper Bergsman is the Engineering Education Research Manager at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the University of Washington, where she is also a doctoral student and graduate research assistant in Learning Sciences and Human Development. Previously, Kristen worked as an educational consultant offering support in curriculum design and publication. She received her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction (Science Education) from the University of Washington.
Eric H. Chudler University of Washington
Eric H. Chudler is a research neuroscientist interested in the neuroactive properties of medicinal plants and herbs and how the brain processes information about pain and nociception. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1985. He has worked at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. (1986-1989) and in the Department of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. (1989-1991). Chudler is currently a research associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the executive director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering. He is also a faculty member in the Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Washington. In addition to performing basic neuroscience research, he works with other neuroscientists and classroom teachers to develop educational materials to help K-12 students learn about the brain.
Abstract
Students are encountering media reports of cutting-edge technologies, such as brain-computer interfaces, deep brain stimulation, retinal implants, and smart prosthetic limbs, that make neural engineering a high-interest topic for the science classroom. The field of sensorimotor neural engineering brings together experts from across disciplines to develop innovative solutions to restore or enhance sensorimotor functions in the human nervous system. Engineers, scientists, ethicists, practitioners, and end-users come together to design device and therapies for neurological disorders such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord injuries.
A growing library of teacher-authored neural engineering curriculum units is available for free to secondary science teachers. For the past six years, the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the University of Washington has hosted a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program that engages secondary science teachers in a seven-week research experience paired with curriculum design. Each RET cohort designs, pilots, revises, and publishes one or more curriculum units. These units are aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and provide suggestions on integrating neuroscience content with contemporary science topics through the use of engineering design challenges.
Currently available curriculum units span one to two weeks of classroom instruction. The study of bioethics is integrated into the units through the use of case studies, articles, and discussions. These curriculum units engage students in designing and building models of neuroprosthetic devices, artificial neural networks, sensory substitution devices, and more.
Bergsman, K. C., & Chudler, E. H. (2018, June), Neural Engineering for Secondary Science Classrooms (Resource Exchange) Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30834
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2018 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015