Neuroscience and Education Colleagues Collaborate to Design and Assess Effective Brain Outreach for Preschoolers

Neuroscience outreach efforts are currently aimed at older elementary or high school children and have not traditionally assessed effectiveness. Additionally, programs are often initiated by either neuroscientists or educators alone, with few combined instances of these groups working together. Considering the wide range of benefits that accompany interdisciplinary collaborations for outreach, this study sought to develop a neuroscience curriculum for preschool students via collaborations between neuroscience and education departments. Six neuroscience lessons addressing various functions of the brain were taught to preschool students in consecutive weeks. The first lesson was given to the entire class, after which a baseline pre-assessment was performed. Students were then divided into groups, after which only half of the class received further neuroscience instruction. A post-assessment measured for increases in neuroscience knowledge in the students. Results showed that students who received the neuroscience lessons had a greater understanding of content-specific material compared to the group who did not receive neuroscience lessons. The undergraduates involved also reported great benefits from participation in this program. This work addresses the gap in interdisciplinary science programming targeting young elementary aged students, and also provides a framework for improved design and assessment of such programs to continue to better scientific outreach efforts.