To follow up on our recent post about fake (and damaging) neuroscience related to learning and the brain, we remind educators that there are a number of excellent resources aimed at helping them and their students find fact-based information about the brain — how it develops, how it supports learning, and how it makes sense of the world.

Today we offer web links to two long-established non-profit foundations that provide highly useful information.  Along with the grounding in neuroscience basics, educators will appreciate the highly accessible information and insights focused on the latest in neuroscience-learning research and the attention given to classroom resources for teaching about the brain.

BrainFacts.org is a website co-sponsored by the Society for Neuroscience. Under a section titled Thinking, Sensing & Behaving, recent articles feature “The Early Stages of the Brain,” “Alcohol and the Brain,” and “Do Hurt Feelings Actually Hurt?”  The In the Lab section, offers an entire section titled For Educators. It includes a guide to helping students see how neurons send messages in their brains through hands-on activities that let them build simple or elaborate circuits.  Just one example among many.

Another useful site is produced by the Dana Foundation; you’ll see a tab For Educators, right at the top of its site.  Click on it and you’ll be able to access primers on neuroscience basics, briefing papers with in-depth looks at timely brain-related topics of general interest, and a link to its lending library of resources for teachers.   Recent articles available at the click of the mouse looked at the brain’s emotional development, searching for effective interventions in dyslexia, and even a piece on how tossing a football or running stairs can help students study for a test.

These are just two resources to get you started fighting fake science and growing your knowledge about learning and the brain with real facts.

– Marie Felde