On 23 May we welcomed a group of 36 year 8 students and their teachers, from local secondary schools Oxford Spires, Oxford Academy, and Greyfriars. This was part of the Oxford University SDG Impact Lab "Sports Leadership Programme", which was "set up to explore ways in which sport, education and career development can combine to create opportunities for young people in the city".
The visit began with an intro lecture from FotB core team members Prof. Heidi Johansen-Berg, Prof. Holly Bridge, PhD student Morgan Mitchell, and education lead Louise Aukland:
Afterwards, we split the students in groups and they circulated between activities in three different zones. One zone was a demo of our 7T MRI scanner (not pictured - you can watch a video of what happens during MRI scans at our centre here).
Another zone was upstairs with three of our 2024 Sports Engagement Ambassadors - PhD students Izabelle and Andrew, and postdoc Holly. (Izabelle studies head injuries in sport, and Andrew and Holly are footballers).
Holly ran an activity on how sleep affects football performance...
Andrew ran an activity on what different areas of the brain do in football...
...and Izabelle had true/false and matching games to discuss head injuries in sport:
In the third zone downstairs, Louise was doing a storytelling activity on thoughts and emotions...
Holly was discussing how brains change over time...
and Heidi and Morgan were running our ever-popular "prism goggles" activity to teach about brain plasticity:
Particular thanks to our Sports Engagement Ambassadors Holly, Izabelle, Andrew; Engagement Ambassadors from our research centre Sarah, Barbara, Laura; and our colleagues who did the scanner demo Poly, Seb, David, Camille, and Carinne.
