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Explore how undergraduate students can use the Allen Brain Map to conduct independent, student-led research about gene expression in human and mouse brains.
About these materials:
Explore three research-focused, interactive lesson plans that guide students through the Allen Brain Atlases and encourage them to explore novel research questions. These lesson plans are suitable for in-person, hybrid, or virtual learning for junior/senior-level undergraduate/college students in neuroscience. Prior knowledge of basic neural anatomy, cell biology, and gene expression is recommended. These lessons were written by Jim Ryan, PhD and Kaitlyn Casimo, PhD.
Lesson plans:
Jim Ryan, PhD and Kaitlyn Casimo, PhD published these materials in order to help other educators design and implement a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) using the data from the Allen Brain Map. Ryan piloted this CURE and details the experience in the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, describing how students’ generated a research question that could be addressed using at least two datasets of the Allen Brain Map, performed their analyses, and produced a conference-style poster. Ryan and Casimo hope that by including an adaptable CURE assignment, tutorials introducing students to selected datasets from the Allen Brain Map, and a summary of student outcomes, other educators could adapt this CURE to fit the needs of their own classrooms.
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