Capstone Project: Brain Day

On January 16th, 2015, Rumeesa Rais conducted her Capstone, Brain Day. Brain Day was located at Crestwood Elementary and included Mrs. Guarnera's third grade class. On this day, there were several stations, such as Building A Neuron, Make A Clay Brain, and Build A Thinking Cap. Each station focused on activities that directly related to neuroscience. The focus of Brain Day was to create a fun, unique way to teach third graders the importance of the brain. Each child received his or her own can of Play-Doh to model a brain and received their own pipe cleaners to build a neuron. Due to the kindness of Pediatric Lung, Allergy, and Sleep Specialists, Rumeesa was able to receive enough funding to purchase items for each station.

Throughout the event, the kids enjoyed working with the volunteers, who were dressed up in scrub suits. Having the volunteers in scrub suits allowed the children to feel like they were in a real hospital, as well. Fortunately, Brain Day turned out to be a huge success and every student learned something new and left happy. The stress that Rumeesa experienced before the day of the event was alleviated and she was ecstatic with the outcome, saying "I am so happy Brain Day went exactly the way I planned it

. It was surreal seeing all of the volunteers in scrub suits and myself in a lab coat; I really felt like I was going to go perform a surgery with my team. It was so satisfying." Lastly, Rumeesa would like to give a huge thank you to her advisor, Mr. Timothy Crane, and her co-advisor, Mrs. Lisa Ebeling. Both of the individuals helped tremendously in the entire process of Brain Day and it wouldn't have been a success without them.