The NEURON Program: Utilizing Low-Cost Neuroscience for Education Outreach

Abstract

The NEURON (Neuroscience Education Undergraduate Research, Outreach, and Networking) Program provides undergraduate students at the University of Arizona the opportunity to work with students from an Arizona high school. Utilizing Backyard Brain (BYB) Equipment and assigning the mentors to different specializations, we provided three weeks of distance-learning programming which taught students about principles of neuroscience and electrophysiology. This work served as a continuation of the Grass Foundation’s Neuroscience Outreach workshops. In this case a special focus was assigned to recruiting mentors of diverse backgrounds and historically underrepresented minority students (URM). Through recruiting practices and working in disadvantaged school system, peer-mentoring practices were leveraged to deliver 4 separate experimental opportunities to historically underserved groups. The high school we partnered with is historically underserved as a Title I school, meaning that 40% of its student population qualifies for free or reduced lunch and therefore fall below the United States Federal Poverty Line. Critical to this program was providing hands- on opportunity to students who were undergoing distance- based learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Socially distanced delivery of equipment to students allowed for equipment to be operated disparately by mentors and mentees. The high school students (mentees) had the opportunity to perform defined tasks from three of the four pieces of equipment. A rotating system was applied so that mentees worked with a different mentor team each week on a given project each week. Program outcomes were shown to be effective and valuable to promoting both mentors and mentees as burgeoning scientists.