What Kind of Mind: Lesson 5 Play and Brains
Creators: name: Ball, Derek
name: Gomez, Juan-Carlos
name: Seed, Amanda
name: Collins, Susan
name: Smith, Jessica
name: Zdrovstova, Natalia
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2023
Subjects: Cognition
Learning, motivation and emotion
Memory and attention
Psychological methodology, design and analysis
Phenomenology
Philosophy of cognition
Philosophy of mind (excl. cognition)
Other education not elsewhere classified
Other psychology not elsewhere classified

description: <strong>Lesson 5: Play and Brains</strong> Lesson 5 investigates what play is and how it may differ between human children and non-human animals, particularly parrots. The evolutionary relationship between birds and humans is covered, and the differences between their brains is explored. The lesson covers questions such as: Why do we play? Can you play without having fun? What is curiosity? How are humans related to parrots? How are bird brains different to ours? How might birds think? <strong>Skills:</strong> Curriculum for Excellence SCN 2-01a, SCN 2-14b, SCN 2-20a, SCN 2-20b Independent and group work Discussion skills, such as reasoned arguments and debate Applying information (eg. neuron system) to abstract issues <strong>Key Resources: </strong> Lesson slides, L5: Lesson slides, prompting class discussion and activities. Lesson plan, L5: Overview of the lesson activities, as well as the goals and success criteria for the lesson. Links to videos are also given (though these are also embedded in the PP). Teacher notes, L5: Detailed notes and instructions following on from the lesson plan, including the stories from slide 3. Annotated slides, L5: Instructions for teachers, associated with the particular lesson slide. Worksheets: (These resources can also be easily printed as part of the student work booklet) Classroom quest worksheet: How can we find out information in different ways? Curiosity task associated with slide 7. Bird brains worksheet: Summary of parrot brain activity, comparing different methods of getting neurons into the brain. (Slide 13) <strong>Additional resources: </strong> A Brief Guide to Bird Intelligence: Some wider background information specifically on birds such as how their brains differ from other mammals and more details about research in this area. <strong>Printable resources for all lessons:</strong> Student workbook: This booklet contains all of the written class activities for students, condensing the resources into a booklet of five sheets of paper (so 20, A5 pages for the students to work on). Although the PDF may look like the pages are in an *interesting* order, if printed correctly they will fold into the booklet. To do this, ensure that printing is double sided, and that the printer is set to flip pages on the short edge. Student prints: This printing resource contains all of the individual sheets to be used by the students throughout the project such as the images to be stuck into their booklets and the researcher questionnaires. The document is designed to be printed double sided, meaning that there are some blank pages so individual resources can be separated. [Page breakdown: (P1-2) Pre-program questionnaire, (P3-P4) Post-program questionnaire, (P5) Lesson 1 Images for intelligence task, (P6) Blank, (P7) Lesson 3 Images for the family tree task, (P8) Blank, (P9) Lesson 6 Images for intelligence task.] Teacher prints: This printing resource contains all sheets the teachers will use throughout the project including teacher questionnaires and answer sheets. The document is designed to be printed double sided, meaning that there are some blank pages so that each individual resource can be separated. [Page breakdown: (P1-P4) Pre-program questionnaire, (P5-P9) Post-program questionnaire, (P10) blank, (P11) Lesson 3 answers, (P12) blank, (P13) Lesson 4 communication task.] <strong>"Living Links" Learning Programme at RZSS</strong> A bespoke learning programme of interactive, interdisciplinary and online sessions on themes from <em>What Kind of Mind?</em> has been developed by the "Living Links" collaboration between the University of St Andrews and RZSS aiming to deepen learners' connections with nature, increase awareness of how our minds affect our health and wellbeing, and promote an understanding of the role of research in scientific development. This free resource can be found on the RZSS Discovery and Learning ZOOdle (Zoo "Digital Learning Environment") website at https://discover.rzss.org.uk/livinglinks.