The Year 12 have been working alongside students from Whitgift and other schools as part of the ‘Whitgift Diploma for Biomedical Science’. They have completed an exciting two terms of lectures and practical work on anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, neuroscience and developmental biology. In their final practical session they completed a guided dissection of a veal brain.
It was carried out across three labs by internal video link, giving a real undergraduate feel to the event. Invited speaker, Dr Clemens Kiecker, Reader in Neuroscience Education from King’s College London, KCL led the students through the external appearance of the brain. Then the different internal structures were identified from their position and colour and carefully dissected. He explained how brains in other mammals differ, the regions of the brain that coordinate different functions and medical problems.
The activity was completed during the British Science Week which this year has the theme of ‘connections’. Students learned that there are approximately 87 neurones in a human brain and nearly half of them are in the cerebellum.
Science Week will be celebrated at Old Palace in the last week of the Spring term.