Brain Healthy
Brain Healthy is a curriculum where students investigate how lifestyle factors like sleep, exercise, and meditation promote brain health and wellness. Through working directly with their own data, Brain Healthy aims to help students increase their data science efficacy, develop scientific identities, and foster a sense of agency over their health decisions.
Curriculum
Brain Healthy engages students in investigations of their own brain health and wellness with the goal of promoting healthier lifestyle choices.
The Brain Healthy units are closely aligned with National Health Education Standards, and can easily be adapted to fit into pre-existing health class curriculum.
Citizen Science
Students participate in a real-world study investigating the relationship between health/lifestyle factors (eg. excerise) and heart rate, mood, and concentration. Students collect their own health data using fitness trackers, which is then added to a community science dataset.
The development of this dataset will help researchers, and students, better understand adolescent health and wellness
Data Science
After participating in the study, students gain access to the deidentified community dataset. Students then explore a research question of their own with the help of a web-based data science application called CODAP.
Research
The Brain Healthy project is much more than a curriculum. It's a living dataset enabling researchers, and high school students, to learn about adolescent health and wellbeing.
The Brain Healthy Team
A group of multidisciplenary researchers, educators, and students have contributed to developing, implementing, and revising Brain Healthy.
Funding
Brain Healthy was made possible through funding from the NIH through SEPA.
