Last summer, a group of Seattle-area high school teachers developed an “Introduction to Neural Engineering Neuroprosthetics & Brain-Computer Interfaces” curriculum as part of the Research Experience for Teachers program at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.

Over the course of seven weeks, the teachers wrote 11 lesson plans and corresponding lab work to help students better understand the basics of neural engineering.  The curriculum was designed to support science teachers in meeting the engineering design standards featured in the Next Generation Science Standards.

Questions the students explored include:

• What is a prosthetic, and a neuroprosthetic?

• What is a neural spike and how does it relate to a neuroprosthetic?

• What is the sensorimotor pathway?

• How can an Arduino be used to model the systems in a neuroprosthetic?

• How does a systems approach help neural engineers?

Angelica Sauceda, chemistry and physics teacher at TAF Academy, was the first to pilot the new neuroprosthetics course, which culminated recently with an evening of student presentations.

TAF Academy is a sixth through 12^th grade public school with a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Students—divided up into groups—created a bionic hand, designed a “better” cochlear implant and a neuroprosthetic sock with sensors that could be used by people with diabetes who lose feeling in their feet.

Sauceda said the course was challenging to teach, but that the summer program prepared her well for explaining things like the Arduino, a system that makes it easier to build interactive objects.

She led a discussion about neuroethics, leading the students to discuss things like cost of and access to the neuroprosthetic.

Sauceda also had the students take on designated roles. “I created roles for the students, including a featured role, a design role, development role and a sales role, which are positions that people at companies like Microsoft hold,” she said. “Students would then figure out what people need and then based on the needs, build the product.”

What did students think about this engineering design class? “They really liked it,” she said, despite the initial challenge of a weighty topic.

The course is currently being piloted at Kent-Meridian High School.  Look for a final version of the curriculum later this year on our site.