Brains to reign March 2 at Lakeland

Brain-centric lessons, hands-on activities to be focus of event

A contingent of Lakeland Community College constituents is hoping to ignite a cerebral spark among some area seventh-graders during the school’s third-annual Brain Day March 2 at its main campus in Kirtland.

It’s the culmination of the college’s week-long observance of Brain Awareness Week — the brainchild of The Dana Foundation and the Society for Neuroscience. Its aim it to get young people already interested in

science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education even more hyped about these disciplines, along with showing them a slice of college life.

Specifically, it’s a day of brain-centric lessons and hands-on activities, including a “brain crash course,” a mini lesson on drugs and the brain, an actual brain dissection and a take-home craft project, Lakeland reports.

“Students will learn from our faculty through engaging lectures and hands-on activities,” a Lakeland new release reads. “Students will work together to dissect a sheep’s brain in our state-of-the-art laboratories... compete in an obstacle course that includes an adult size trike-bike while wearing goggles that simulate a brain impaired by alcohol (and) compete in teams in a series of brain challenges that test their senses.”

Among the challenges are a blindfolded football toss in which one team member has to find and toss a football to his/her partner who tries to catch it in a laundry basket without being able to see.

Andrea Musial, an assistant professor in Lakeland’s biology department, initiated Brain Day along with Lakeland’s contribution to Brain Awareness Week three years ago, thanks in part to earning a Lakeland Foundation faculty challenge grant.

Musial, who earned her doctorate in neuroscience from Kent State University, said she was inspired, herself, in seventh grade to pursue the career path she did by way of her middle-school science teacher at Our Shepherd Lutheran School in Painesville.

Musial said it was the field trip Pat Beifuss took her and her classmates on to the Great Lakes Science Center during Brain Awareness Week that sparked the flame that has since illuminated her own vocational path.

“(Beifuss) took us to the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland and they were observing Brain Awareness Week,” said Musial, who is a 2003 Fairport Harding High School graduate. “There were different colleges that had displays there and one college had all kinds of different exhibits on brain function and the effects of trauma on the brain and... all kinds of different brain-focused topics.”

She said that “of course, I was the geek in the front row raising my hand and asking all these questions” during a presentation that day, she said.

“At that point, I had no idea what I wanted to do as far as a career went,” she said. “I knew I liked science. I hadn’t planned for a career in science by then. But this was a very important event.”

She said Beifuss was also an important factor in the eventual materialization of her career path.

“I also really liked my science teacher in middle school,” Musial said. “And that was really important. She was a great teacher and she definitely influenced me and my interest in science.”

She said that’s why Brain Day’s participants are in seventh grade and are chosen by their teachers because they exhibit an interest and aptitude in STEM education.

Dione DeMitro, director for the Nonprofit and Public Service Center at Lakeland, like Musial, said she’s excited to bring students from the community Lakeland serves onto campus for the day, especially considering this group will be working part of it inside the college’s new Health Technologies addition, particularly in the HIVE makerspace, along with the renovated third-floor science portion of B Building.

“We’re particularly excited because this is one of the first opportunities we’ve had to bring students from our K-12 partners into that space,” DeMitro said, adding that she takes every opportunity she can to introduce the new facilities at Lakeland to aspiring collegians.

“I’m excited,” DeMitro said about Lakeland’s new digs. “I’ve personally taken both of my sons, my niece and her friends through it — anyone who’s thinking about (College Credit Plus) or college in general.”

She added that Brain Day’s feedback has been nothing but positive since it was initiated three years ago.

“Oh, the feedback has always been really positive. And I think that’s reflected by the schools sending students back each year,” she said. “For me, from my perspective, this might be the first time they, or even anyone in their families, have been on a college campus. So it’s really important to us that they feel comfortable here. We want it to be accessible.”

She said that, if the seventh-graders that visit campus for Brain Day on March 2 leave there “able to see themselves attending college, then it’s a success.”

Musial agreed, saying that sharing something about which one is passionate is as rewarding as it gets.

“It’s nice to share something you’re passionate about with other people,” she said. “When you see them catch on to something, it feels really good, especially at that age, like seventh grade. It’s a great time. They’re thinking and trying to plan ahead for college and all that. It’s just great to see.”

She added how impressed she is, year after year, with the middle-schoolers who participate. She said their questions and their acute interest in what they’re doing inspires her.

Musial also said she’s impressed with the Lakeland student-volunteers who have been involved since the program’s genesis three years ago.

Brain Day is the culmination of a week’s worth of special events and activities happening at Lakeland all week, including lectures, demonstrations and hands-on activities. Musial said it happened a week early this year due to the college’s mid-term schedule.