We began our journey in January 2010 to develop ideas for our Undergraduate Neuroscience Program's participation in the USA Science Festival, a bi-yearly event, first held in San Diego in 2008 . After many brainstorming sessions, we came up with the theme of our booth: Networking Neurons: Making Super Synapses. To make the story of neurons exciting, we collected pictures of neurons from Hopkins contributors and had them enlarged to poster size. We also lined our booth with illustrated drawings of three neurons synapsing with each other. There was a large model of a neuron showing details, courtesy of Mike McCloskey. One hundred mini plush neurons were sewn together to communicate the message "JHU". Our student volunteers told the story of how the billions of neurons in our brains work. The festival participants had their photos taken with our Neuron Mascot, and to complete a keepsake neuron keychain, sent their own message with alphabet beads down the axon of a neuron. There were approximately 500,000 visitors to the Festival this year.

 

http://www.usasciencefestival.org/

Beady Neuron Instructions | USA Science Festival Photos | USA Science Festival Videos

Beady Neuron Photo | Neuron Photos-JHU Contributers

 

April 27-29, 2012

 

Building on the success of the inaugural Festival in 2010, the 2nd USA Science & Engineering Festival will inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers with school programs and nationwide contests throughout the 2011/2012 school year and a finale Expo in Washington DC on April 27-29, 2012. The Expo is the nation's largest celebration of all things science & engineering and features over 1500 hands-on activities and over 75 performances on multiple stages. The 2010 Festival attracted over 500,000 people of all ages and had strong support from the White House and Congress.