Rathdown BT Young Scientist 2011

1. Rathdown BT Young Scientist 2011 Magic minds Wiki blog

2. What is our project about? This year, our project is based on the brain. We separated into four groups, each focusing on a different aspect. Our groups were decided from our scores on a spelling test, a memory test and a problem solving test. The groups were:- • Mind Lab • Sports • Healthy Eating • DS Brain Training. Then we were retested to see if our scores improved.

3. The brain • The Main Parts of the Brain · Your brain is split into 2 hemispheres. · The left hemisphere controls speech, understanding what people say, maths, logic and the right side of the body. · The right side controls art, creativity, music, emotions and the left side of the body. · The cerebellum controls movement, coordination and learning a new movement. · The Pons is involved in sleep and awareness. · The spinal cord carries messages to the brain and then sends information back down. · The medulla oblongata is the part of the brain that helps control the automatic body functions. · The frontal lobe is the main control centre for the body; it is the last thing that develops as a young adult. · The temporal lobe is in charge of memory and is the main part we are focusing on in this project.

4. Mind Lab Group We are the first school in Ireland to do Mind Lab so we decided to include it in our project. Research proves that Mind Lab helps you with problem solving, learning and brain development. We have weekly classes in Mind lab and the group did extra Mind lab games.

5. Mind lab Mind lab is part of Rathdown curriculum and we are very excited to have it in our project, this year. It is a series of games, that helps us understand real life situations, and it uses different methods to do so. In Mind lab we play games such as mancala, checkers and rush hour and use methods like the Stoplight and the Detective methods. Mind lab was started in 1994, in Israel, by Ehud Shachar and Dan Gendlemen. They were chess masters and played chess in their minds. They taught many students and decided to use different games to help the students understand the rules in chess, their idea also helped them in memory and problem solving. Mind lab is now played in over 30 countries around the world. (http://www.Mind labuk.com/)

6. Sports Group The sports group has been focusing on trying to keep fit and exercising. The sports group have been running, playing tennis, walking, jogging, doing yoga, gymnastics and playing rounders. They did these sports to see if it would help themconcentrate more in class.

7. Sports Group (contd) Everyone is meant to do at least half an hour of sports everyday to stimulate your brain and body. It is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and plan. Exercising helps blood move through the body and to and from the brain. It gives you more energy and improves your mood, which has a positive effect on your brain. Sport and the brain • Sport and fitness is proven to help your brain. Exercise helps blood move through the body and moves blood to and from the brain. • Exercise gives you energy and improves your mood which will have a positive effect on your brain. The brain cells become stronger with regular exercise and are kept stimulated and more capable of retaining new information. • A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine tested the effect of exercise on the brains of elderly people and found that those who were exercising at least three times a week were a third less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who didn’t.

8. DS Brain Training Group The brain training group brought in their DSs, once a week and tested their brain fitness. They played against and with each other. They felt that they could concentrate much more and their problem solving skills increased noticeable.

9. Brain Training How does brain training work? Brain training helps in many different ways 1.The first step in brain training is the menu. The menu lets you do quick play, daily training, Sudoku and download. 2. Quick play allows you to do a quick brain age check, quick training and quick Sudoku. 3. Daily training allows you to make your own file so you can go and play on it every day and check your brain age. The DS keeps track of all your scores and brain age over the years. When you go onto daily training, you have four options brain age check, training, graph and other options. Brain age check allows you to check your brain age, training allows you to train your brain and play fun games. The graph shows your brain age and how it has increased and decreased. The last option your settings, and your signature. This option is very helpful because it show you some tips you have learned 4. Sudoku is a game of strategy. This game is really fun and is enjoyed by many people in our class. 5. The last option is download. This allows you to connect with people with brain train and play against them.

10. Healthy Eating Group The healthy eating group made many healthy snacks, such as smoothies, jelly and fruit kebabs. Each day they had to eat five fruit or vegetable portions. Quantity 1 a day

11. Healthy Eating Healthy eating is very important for keeping a healthy and strong body. By simply changes eating white to brown bread, milk chocolate to dark chocolate. 5 a day is also very important to maintain a healthy balanced lifestyle. Fruit Vegetables seeds Brown Bread

12. Our Breakfast Morning In November, the P6 class decided to do a breakfast morning for the whole of Rathdown Junior school. We made lots of healthy and nutritious snacks, such as porridge, oat bars, fruit salad, breakfast muffins, brown bread and freshly squeezed orange juice. We did this to get the whole school involved and to see if it helped them concentrate better.

13. Visitors We had many different visitors such as, • Sophie Mills discussed the different aspects and advantages of playing Mind Lab • Emer Mc Leavey explained the benefits of playing sport and exercising regularly • Cathy Coulter Smith works as a neurologist, in Temple Street Hospital, and spoke to us about the brain and its functions • Andrea Cross and Teresa Healy talked to us about healthy eating and its affects on the brain

14. Curriculum Strand Units

15. Results Test 1–After the first set of tests all the results were averaged and the Groups compiled so that each group had an overall score of 221.The total class score was 884. Test 2 After the second set of tests the total results for each Group was recalculated. The new overall class score was 895.

16. Conclusion • When we were retested our scores had changed greatly. The second set of tests were more difficult, and usually the scores would be expected go down. The scores showed that : • DS brain training increased in every test. • Mind Lab group increased in two of the test and decreased in the memory test. • Sports group increased in the memory test, but overall had the lowest mark. • Healthy Eating group decreased in all of their tests. • This shows that the DS brain training group was the most effective and sports was the least.