Annual CIHR Canadian National Brain Bee | McMaster University

The Brain Bee is a competition for high school students, grades 9 through 12. It is fashioned after a traditional Spelling Bee, except that students answer questions about the brain and neuroscience research. It is designed to stimulate interest and excitement about brain research.  Students study topics on memory, sleep, intelligence, emotion, perception, stress, aging, brainimaging, neurology, neurotransmitters, genetics, and brain disease (just to list a few). It is an exciting opportunity for high school students to learn about  the brain and the importance of brain research. It brings the students to the university in their area to meet students and professors who are doing brain research. It is an avenue of communication, through media and students, to raise awareness of brain research in the community. It is a mechanism to attract bright young minds to the study of neuroscience. The Brain Bee is an effective recruitment tool. We have examples of several students in our current undergraduate programs who chose to study the brain because of their experience as high school competitors in the Brain Bee.

History of the Brain Bee

The Brain Bee is part of Brain Awareness Week (BAW: http://www.sfn.org/baw/) which was launched in 1996 by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN: http://sfn.org/) and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives (http://brainweek.data.org/), with a mission to increase awareness of neuroscience in the general community. BAW is held each year in March and is celebrated in countries around the world. The Brain Bee, founded by Dr. Norbert Myslinski at the University of Maryland, is focused on participation of high school students. The Brain Bee is a 3-tiered (local, national, international) organization involving local competitions across the world.

Prior to 2008, local brain bee winners went directly to Baltimore to compete in the International Brain Bee, hosted by Dr. Norbert Myslinski at the University of Maryland. Since 2008, countries around the world have been organizing their own national competitions as an intermediate step between the local and international competitions.

Our volunteers

Our McMaster team is entirely volunteer, including staff, students, and faculty from the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour (PNB) and the McMaster Integrative Neuroscience Discovery and Study (MiNDS), and with financial support from the Faculty of Science and MiNDS at McMaster. The large team of volunteers is led by local organizers Dr. Judith Shedden, Dr. Joe Kim, and Chris McAllister.