We often hear (gladly!) how teachers use our blog articles and brain teasers in their classes. We also hear how many psychology and biology teachers are getting their students excited about brain research, and, to contribute to their efforts, we like to recognize some great initiatives.

Last year, Jeffrey Gonce, a Psychology teacher at Red Land High School (West Shore School District, PA) asked his students to “complete a project describing a recent brain (or genetic) study that affects behavior.” The students could opt to post their articles online, and Jeffrey was kind enough to send us a link to read the results. We enjoyed reading them all, and published in our blog this beautiful essay, titled “Tis better to give than receive”, written by Alexandra, which was subsequently included in a number of neuroscience an psychology blogs.

This year, Jeffrey also sent us his students’ essays, and we are going to recognize and publish this great essay by high school student Megan. Enjoy!
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It has long been the source of scientific debate as to whether music can improve the cognitive processes in children. Referred to by some as “The Mozart Effect,” a strong Read the rest of this entry »

A few years ago I had the chance to meet, and see in action, Hans Rosling (follow the link and play the fascinating clip if you have 6 minutes), at a summit by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. He is a Professor of International Health who developed Trendalyzer software, a tool that brings statistics to live with great visual and animation techniques. Google bought the software last March. You can find it here now.

The Financial Times today has an article titled The hidden beauty of numbers (subscription required), with some great quotes such as “Prof. Rosling works on the premise that the world can never be understood without numbers-or with only numbers” and “He draws an analogy with music: most people would find the written notes dull but love them when they are played. He says he wants to play the statistics and is adamant that he has the eye of the user in mind all the time”.

Here is a full presentation at TED Talks. Enjoy a much more insighful and fun way to see the world!

Two related posts:

• Microfinance, and a very sharp brain
• “Everyone a Changemaker”, Ashoka and Google

TED Conference, a great annual conference on anything and everything new and meaningful, announces the public launch of their revamped website with great content and social networking tools, all under the banner “Ideas worth spreading”.

You can exercise your mind by learning about most science and technology subjects through wonderful TEDTalks video clips. Some examples:

• a few presentations on the theme How the Mind Works
• Bill Clinton
• E.O. Wilson
• Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice

and many many more.