Day 2

I continued to be impressed with the nun’s knowledge about the brain on day two.  During the “Brain, Brain” activity, the nuns were asked to compare and contrast a common object to the brain.  Some of their comments focused on the structure of the objects, other comments focused on the function of the objects.

We continued by discussing how some brain areas of specialized for a function, for example Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area.  We also talked about Roger Sperry’s work where the corpus callosum was cut and the resulting behavioral problems when information is restricted to either the right or left side of the brain.

This led to a discussion about laterality.  The nuns all knew if they were right or left-handed (only 1 of 30 nuns was left-handed), but few knew if they had dominant feet, eyes or ears.  So, we tested for dominance using some simple tests.

The day ended with brain hats.  The construction of brain hats is one of my favorite activities.  The nuns were given two papers with an outline of the right and left hemispheres of the brain.  After coloring the hemispheres, the nuns started to cut around the outside of each drawing.  We did not get to finish the construction of the brain hat and I told the nuns not to forget to bring their “brains” back to class tomorrow.