Does Your Child Excel in Science? Ideaventions in Oakton Introduces Innovative BRAiN Program for Middle Schoolers-Applications Due Now for Summer Course in August

The combined brainpower of Ursinus College and the innovation of Oakton-based Ideaventions are coming together to produce an exceptional BRAiN program for highly motivated middle school students.

BRAiN—or Biomedical Research Academy in Neuroscience—is led by resident scientist Catherine Swanwick, Ph.D., in conjunction with the laboratory of Carlita Favero, Ph.D., of Ursinus College.  Favero will provide biological tissue and advise curriculum design for the program, which aims to teach rising 6th-8th graders key concepts of cellular and molecular biology while introducing them to laboratory techniques common for biomedical research. The students will investigate the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on brain development using the brains of mice.

“Science should not be presented to students as a set of facts,” said Swanwick.  “The fun aspect of science is the unknown.  In our BRAiN program at ideaventions, our students will be given the opportunity to make new discoveries using an entirely different set of scientific criteria.”

The students, only eight of whom will be selected from a competitive pool of gifted youngsters, will write an abstract to be considered for the Society for Neuroscience Conference in 2015.

Two phases of the BRAiN program will be offered:  a two-week summer course and a  2014-2015 school-year program.  The summer course will be held Aug. 4-15 at Sunset Hills Montessori School in Reston, Va.  The school-year program will be conducted from mid-October until May at the ideaventions science center in Oakton, Va.  For those students interested in the school-year program that were unable to attend the summer course, ideaventions will offer a short six-week BRAiN Blast course in early Fall to cover material taught during the summer session.