Last Friday, UC Riverside hosted Brain Awareness Day, a volunteer-driven event that brought more than 400 middle and high school students from across our region to campus to learn hands-on about how the brain works.

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Student Recreation Center breezeway featured 20 interactive science booths where visitors explored brain dissections, animal skulls, and neuron communication — all guided by graduate student volunteers from the Neuroscience Graduate Student Association, or NGSA.

“We had guided tours for visitors that highlighted key UCR neuroscience research areas,” said David Nikom, outreach chair of NGSA. “We got good interest this year — 20 local schools applied to send their students, and we could accommodate only half of them.”