How do our brains actually work? A neuroscience workshop at The Mall

11th December 25

Models of a skull and a brain, as well as a diagram of the various sections of the brain

Year 5 and 6 pupils recently enjoyed a visit from a team of neuroscientists at King’s College London’s Wolfson SPaRC (Sensory, Pain and Regeneration Centre). The PhD students, researchers and lecturers discussed how the brain works, which parts of the brain are responsible for different bodily functions, senses and emotions, the parts of a neuron and how signals are transmitted via neuronal pathways.

As a musical ice-breaker, pupils started the workshop by dancing! The research team then lead a discussion on how the brain helps us control our bodies, amongst many other vitally important functions.
For their second activity, the children coloured in a brain hat, identifying the four key lobes in the brain and demonstrating how those areas control different things like movement and the senses.

Neurons and brain signal transmissions

Pupils then discussed hearing, in comparison to how signals are carried to the brain along neurons which help us hear (e.g. the music they’d danced to at the beginning of the workshop).

Once we’d learned about neurons, we made our own with three coloured parts, then worked out how signals are transmitted from one brain cell to another via electrical and chemical signals. The workshop finished with a pupil neuronal pathway game.

Many thanks to Aminul Ahmed, Senior Lecturer in Neurosurgery and father to one of our pupils, for bringing this outreach programme to The Mall School. We did enjoy the visit from him and the team!

About KCL’s Wolfson SPaRC

Wolfson SPaRC is a department at King’s College London, at which research is conducted on chronic pain and migraine, spinal cord and brain repair, and hearing loss and memory systems. The team’s fundamental mission is to understand the biological mechanisms behind neurological and sensory disorders and harness this knowledge to develop new therapeutic strategies.