High School Lesson Plan

This plan will also work for middle school, though the students will be less sophisticated.

Use the technique of asking questions. That is, instead of telling the students the names of brain parts, ask the class if there is anyone who knows the name of a brain part. Ask What's this? How does this or that happen? etc.

• materials needed:
• hand out of the poems quoted below.
• the catch the rod equipment (available from MGL in 233 Huestis)
• transparencies (availiable from MGL in 233 Huestis)
• of animal and human brains,
• neuron,
• crossed connections of the cortex.
• Tan's brain. (This is the brain of the patient "Tan" who taught Paul Broca that language was on the left side.)
• whole sheep brain, hemisected sheep brain showing corpus callosum. (available from Karen Larison)
• human brain model (available from Vonda Evans)
• modeling clay (available from MGL in 233 Huestis)
• video of split brain patient  (available from MGL in 233 Huestis)
• Teacher must provide a VCR and overhead projector. Check it out first.
  
  
• Read this Emily Dickinson poem:

The brain is wider than the sky--
For--put them side by side--
The one the other will contain
With ease--and you--beside.
• Ask what does it mean? Solicit answers from several students. Give what you think is the right answer? 
  
  
• Read this quote from Ramon y Cajal

"As long as our brain is a mystery, the universe, the reflection of the structure of the brain will also be a mystery"
• Ask: What does it mean, etc.
• Emphasize that the working of the brain defines what we know.
• Can the brain understand itself? Nobody knows--yet. 
  
  
• Read this quote from David Hubel

"The Brain is a tissue. It is a complicated, intricately woven tissue, like nothing else we know of in the universe, but it is composed of cells, as any tissue is. They are, to be sure, highly specialized cells, but they function according to the laws that govern other cells. there electrical and chemical signals can be detected, recorded and interpreted and their chemicals can be identified; the connections that constitute the brain's woven feltwork can be mapped. In short, the brain can be studied, just as the kidney can."


• What do brain cells look like?
• view the transparency showing neuron with soma, axon, dendrites.
• Neurons are like a hugh world wide web of little animals talking to each other over long distance lines.
• How many neurons are there inside you?
• How many people are there on the face of the earth?
• How do the neurons talk to each other?
• Do they use electricity? Do the use chemicals? How do they use chemicals?
• What are the chemicals called?
• When did the neurons get inside your skull? How many of them were there when you were born?
• make model with clay showing dendrites, soma, axon.
• With grade school classes you can have the kids make the model as you demonstrate.
• make model of synapse: pre and post membrane at high magnification. 
  
  
• Let's do a demonstration-experiment on neuronal communication (catch the rod)
• How far does the rod drop before you can catch it?
• How long does it take you to catch the rod (in milliseconds) after it starts moving?
• Why can't you catch it sooner? What takes so much time?
• Can you catch it quicker if the neural message travels a shorter distance?
• Close your eyes and catch the rod when you feel it move with your hand.
• Catch the rod when you sense the movement with your nose.
• In which case can you catch the rod faster?
• Why? Are you sure you are right?
• Are there other explanations?
• Is this a definitive experiment? Why not?
• How many explanations does a definitive experiment have? 
  
  
• Let's look at brains.
• View the brain transparency on the projector. Take out the sheep brain and the human brain model.
• Is the sheep brain a natural color? Why not? What is the natural color?
• Is the sheep brain the right consistancy, softness? Why not?
• Note the difference in size of brains of different animals shown on the overhead.
• Why do different animals have different sized brains?
• Is the brain the same shape in the different animals?
• Why are brains different in shape?
• What implications do shape differences have for behavior?
• Do the chimpanzee and human brains have the same shape?
• Where are the differences in shape?
• How does this make us different than a chimp? 
  
  
• Does anyone know the name of any brain parts? Can you point to a part you know about?

(You can skip over the parts you don't know, Or save time by skipping items marked "*") 


• Where is the spinal cord?
• Who knows someone with a spinal injury?
• What are the symptoms? what explains the symptoms?
• Can the person move below the level of the injury?
• Can the person feel below the level of the injury?
• Did the patient recover? Do spinal patients always recover?
• Why don't they always recover?
• How can research learn to make spinal injury heal? 
  
  
• *Where is the medulla? What does it do?
• breathing, sleeping.
• What if the brain is dead above the medulla? What would a person be like? 
  
  
• *Where are the pons and midbrain? What do they do?
• reflexes of face
• eye movements
• control of alertness.
• basic posture and walking movements.
• The cause of parkinson's disease is in the midbrain.
• Who knows someone with Parkinson's disease? What are symptoms?
• Who knows what the cause of Parkinson's disease is?
• How is it treated? Why does the treatment work? 
  
  
• *Where is the cerebellum:
• balance
• coordination
• How a neurologists tests for cerebellum function (touch your nose with your eyes closed test)(can you stand up with your eyes closed) 
  
  
• *Where is the hypothalamus
• Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what the hypothalamus does?
• What is homeostasis?
• How is homeostasis like a home heating system?
• Where is the body's thermostat? That's right, in the hypothalamus.
• The hypothalamus is different in males than in females. Why would this be?
• You guessed it. It's the difference in reproductive function.
• Cyclic vs constant hormones 
  
  
• Where is the cerebrum and its "cerebral hemispheres"?
• View the overhead of the crossed connections
• What is a stroke? How does it hurt the brain?
• Who knows someone who had a stroke?
• What were the symptoms? which side? could the patient speak? move arms, hands, legs?
• Which side of the brain got injured?
• Can you explain how the location of the injury is related to the symptoms?
• Which side is injured when a stroke causes the patient to be unable to speak?
• Show transparency of "Tan". 
  
  
• Who knows where the corpus callosum is?
• Show them the corpus callosum in the sheep hemisected brain
• What is the function of the corpus callosum?
• Show the transparency again indicating how the left hemisphere controls the right half body and vise versa. Show how the corpus callosum connects the right to the left. Show how the corpus callosum can be cut.
• Show video of patient whose corpus callosum was sectioned to control epilepsy.
• Why could the patient not speak about objects on the left side of the screen.
• Why did the patient's left hand draw what was on the left side of the screen?
• What is prooved by the observation of the split brain patient? Don't just say "Gee Whiz!" Tell me what it prooves! 
  
  
• What is the most interesting thing you've learned or seen today?