Outreach activity- Brain Camp 2021
On Spring break, two of our ESRs, Ana Rita Brás and Tizibt Ashine Bogale, participated in Brain Camp International 2021. An event where they teached neuroscinece classes to high school students from Hungary. The event was organized by Xheladin & Xhufe Morina foundation, a non-profit organisation that aims to provide support for the education of students in Kosovo in the fields of science technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The BrainCamp has been held since 2019 in Pristina, Kosovo, however due to COVID19 pandemic, the event was taken into online platform and therefore reachable to other countries such as Hungary, Albania, Kosovo, Lativa, and North Macedonia. Several young scientists from undergraduate and graduate schools in Europe and North America colaborated as teachers in the event.
During the one week event, the pupils got an overview on several neuroscience topics such as neuroanatomy, history of neuroscience, cell types of CNS, among others. In addition to attending the lectures, the pupils were engaged in a debate to help develop their scientific skills as being critique. At the end of the week, a final competition was held in which students organised in teams had to come up with a research question and a scientific paln to address the question. The participation demonestrated during the competetion by the students was really impressive.
The ESRs Ana Rita Brás and Tizibt Ashine Bogale were delighted to participate in this magnificent event and very well impressed with the future of neuroscience.
You can find out more about this amazing foundation at https://www.xhmfoundation.com/ .
What our ESRs thought of this experience:
Ana Rita: ” It was a great week. I was really impressed with the students that learned such complex topics in a foreign language. I'm glad I shared this opportunity with all the amazing teachers as well.”
Tizibt: ” It was an amazing experience, I really enjoyed teaching and discussing with such bright students. I am also grateful for the networking opportunity that this event set for all of the teachers who are doing neuroscience as graduate students and postdocs in diffrent parts of the world”