Neuroplicity: Leveraging New Media and Digital Storytelling to Connect Society to Neuroscience (2016-2017)

Scientists are infamously inept at communicating the importance of their research to nonexperts. However, most of the questions they study are of fundamental interest and relevance to society, and it is the responsibility of academics (and ultimately, to their benefit) to effectively translate their research to as broad an audience as possible.

This Bass Connections project tackled the challenge of improving the connection between basic neuroscience research and society’s understanding of this research. Team members began by building skills in videography, animation, web platforms, scripting, interviewing and storytelling. They developed and tested an alternative reality game for middle school and high school students to help them learn about neuroscience, and produced a series of videos.

Timing

Summer 2016 – Spring 2017

Team Outcomes

Kenneth Rogerson, Neuroplicity: Simplicity in Neuroscience for Everyone ($5,000 grant awarded from The Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund, 2018)

Educational video game to teach students about neuroscience

Project demo at Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS) Discovery Day (April 9, 2017)

Dr. Nicole Calakos’ Origin Story (produced by Rachel Tung, Kaylin Tsukayama, Anna Kipervaser)

Dr. Cagla Eroglu’s Research (produced by Kaylin Tsukayama, animations by Ashley Han)

Video

Four Views of Bass Connections at Duke

Reflections

Khalid Williams

Kaylin Tsukayama

This Team in the News

Duke Seniors Share What Was Most Meaningful about Their Bass Connections Experiences

“Bass Connections Equals Opportunity:” Four Undergraduates Share Their Perspectives

I think one of the best things about Bass Connections is that it gives you an opportunity to be intimately involved with very sophisticated and difficult research topics, with the freedom that you might not otherwise have in a more traditional undergraduate research setting. I’ve been learning skills over the past year that I never thought I’d have exposure to. —Khalid Williams

See earlier related team, Neuroplicity (2015-2016).

Team Leaders

  • Mark Olson, Arts & Sciences-Art, Art History, and Visual Studies
  • Nina Sherwood, Arts & Sciences-Biology

/undergraduate Team Members

  • Eunkyeol Han, Neuroscience (BS)
  • Michael Li, Computer Science (AB)
  • Tinpei Tung, Psychology (AB)
  • Amon Khalid Williams, Neuroscience (BS)
  • Zhengzhi Xu, Computer Science (BS)

/yfaculty/staff Team Members

  • Anna Kipervaser, Arts & Sciences-Literature
  • Kaylin Tsukayama, Neurology Administration