In addition, students can be introduced to some basic physiology of the brain. For example, students are intrigued to discover that little fibers grow in their brains to form the basis of memory. Place a drawing of a neuron on an overhead transparency. Your arm is the axon, a thick growth that extends from the neuron. Your fingers are dendrites, little fibers that allow the neurons to communicate and cooperate with other neurons.
Neurons are like little electric batteries.
A neuron passes along information through impulses that travel down the axon and trigger chemicals that carry the message to the dendrites of other neurons. Thus thousands of cells are connected to form memories. When a neuron is involved in learning, it then grows new dendrites, which reach out to yet other groups of neurons. So just because you've been carrying it around in your head all these years, you think you know all about your brain. We'll see . . .