Download Your Amazing Brain

Instructions: COMPLETE ALL QUESTIONS AND MARGIN NOTES
Read the following article carefully and make notes in the margin as you read.
Your notes should include:
Instructions: COMPLETE ALL QUESTIONS AND MARGIN NOTES
Questions/Notes: Answer in COMPLETE SENTENCES unless otherwise instructed. Read the following article carefully and make
notes in the margin as you read.
Your notes should include:
o Comments that show that you understand the article (A summary or statement of the main idea of important sections may
serve this purpose)
o Questions you have that show what you are wondering about as you read.
o Interesting facts or something new that you learned.
o Observations about how the writer’s strategies (organization, word choice, perspective, support).
Student ____________________________Class Period__________________
ARTICLE 1
Your Amazing Brain
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/spacescience/brain/
You carry around a three-pound mass of wrinkly material in your head that controls every single thing you will
ever do. From enabling you to think, learn, create, and feel emotions to controlling every blink, breath, and
heartbeat—this fantastic control center is your brain. It is a structure so amazing that a famous scientist once
called it "the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe."
Your brain is faster and more powerful than a supercomputer.
Your kitten is on the kitchen counter. She's about to step onto a hot stove. You have only seconds to act. Accessing
the signals coming from your eyes, your brain quickly calculates when, where, and at what speed you will need to
dive to intercept her. Then it orders your muscles to do so. Your timing is perfect and she's safe. No computer can
come close to your brain's awesome ability to download, process, and react to the flood of information coming
from your eyes, ears, and other sensory organs.
Your brain generates enough electricity to power a lightbulb.
Your brain contains about 100 billion microscopic cells called neurons—so many it would take you over 3,000 years
to count them all. Whenever you dream, laugh, think, see, or move, it’s because tiny chemical and electrical signals
are racing between these neurons along billions of tiny neuron highways. Believe it or not, the activity in your brain
never stops. Countless messages zip around inside it every second like a supercharged pinball machine. You’re
neurons create and send more messages then all the phones in the entire world And while a single neuron
generates only a tiny amount of electricity, all your neurons together can generate enough electricity to power a
low-wattage bulb.
Neurons send information to your brain at more than 150 miles (241 kilometers) per hour.
A bee lands on your bare foot. Sensory neurons in your skin relay this information to your spinal cord and brain at
a speed of more than 150 miles (241 kilometers) per hour. Your brain then uses motor neurons to transmit the
message back through your spinal cord to your foot to shake the bee off quickly. Motor neurons can relay this
information at more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) per hour.
When you learn, you change the structure of your brain.
Riding a bike seems impossible at first. But soon you master it. How? As you practice, your brain sends "bike
riding" messages along certain pathways of neurons over and over, forming new connections. In fact, the structure
of your brain changes every time you learn, as well as whenever you have a new thought or memory.
Exercise helps make you smarter.
It is well known that any exercise that makes your heart beat faster, like running or playing basketball, is great for
your body and can even help improve your mood. But scientists have recently learned that for a period of time
after you've exercised, your body produces a chemical that makes your brain more receptive to learning. So if
you're stuck on a homework problem, go out and play a game of soccer, then try the problem again. You just might
discover that you're able to solve it.
ARTICLE 2
Your Brain and What It Does
A diagram of how the brain works
From Building Mental Muscle
Glossary of Terms
Six Brain Functions

AMYGDALA: Lying deep in the center of the
limbic emotional brain, this powerful structure,
the size and shape of an almond, is constantly
alert to the needs of basic survival including
sex, emotional reactions such as anger and
fear. Consequently it inspires aversive cues,
such as sweaty palms, and has recently been
associated with a range of mental conditions
including depression to even autism. It is larger
in male brains, often enlarged in the brains of
sociopaths and it shrinks in the elderly.

BRAIN STEM: The part of the brain that
connects to the spinal cord. The brain stem
controls functions basic to the survival of all
animals, such as heart rate, breathing,
digesting foods, and sleeping. It is the lowest,
most primitive area of the human brain.


CEREBELLUM: Two peach-size mounds of
folded tissue located at the top of the brain
stem, the cerebellum is the guru of skilled,
coordinated movement (e.g., returning a tennis
serve or throwing a slider down and in) and is
involved in some learning pathways.
CEREBRUM: This is the largest brain structure
in humans and accounts for about two-thirds
of the brain’s mass. It is divided into two sides
— the left and right hemispheres—that are
separated by a deep groove down the center
from the back of the brain to the forehead.
These two halves are connected by long
neuron branches called the corpus callosum
which is relatively larger in women’s brains
than in men’s. The cerebrum is positioned over
and around most other brain structures, and its
four lobes are specialized by function but are
richly connected. The outer 3 millimeters of
“gray matter” is the cerebral cortex which
consists of closely packed neurons that control
most of our body functions, including the
mysterious state of consciousness, the senses,
the body’s motor skills, reasoning and
language.

The Frontal Lobe is the most recently-evolved part
of the brain and the last to develop in young
adulthood. Its dorso-lateral prefrontal circuit is the
brain’s top executive. It organizes responses to
complex problems, plans steps to an objective,
searches memory for relevant experience, adapts
strategies to accommodate new data, guides
behavior with verbal skills and houses working
memory. Its orbitofrontal circuit manages
emotional impulses in socially appropriate ways
for productive behaviors including empathy,
altruism, interpretation of facial expressions.
Stroke in this area typically releases foul language
and fatuous behavior patterns.

The Temporal Lobe controls memory storage area,
emotion, hearing, and, on the left side, language.

The Parietal Lobe receives and processes sensory
information from the body including calculating
location and speed of objects.

The Occipital Lobe processes visual data and
routes it to other parts of the brain for
identification and storage.

HIPPOCAMPUS: located deep within the brain, it
processes new memories for long-term storage. If
you didn't have it, you couldn't live in the present,
you'd be stuck in the past of old memories. It is
among the first functions to falter in Alzheimer's.

HYPOTHALAMUS: Located at the base of the brain
where signals from the brain and the body’s
hormonal system interact, the hypothalamus
maintains the body’s status quo. It monitors
numerous bodily functions such as blood pressure
and body temperature, as well as controlling body
weight and appetite.

THALAMUS: Located at the top of the brain stem,
the thalamus acts as a two-way relay station,
sorting, processing, and directing signals from the
spinal cord and mid-brain structures up to the
cerebrum, and, conversely, from the cerebrum
down the spinal cord to the nervous system.
1. Write the underlined sentence from the passage correctly. No need for a complete sentence
here – this one is all or none.
2. Why would it be a good idea to study after you exercise according to article 1?
3. What is the last part of the brain to develop? How might this late development impact middle
school students, teens, and young adults?
4. How might the brain compensate for the loss of a particular sense (for example, what if
someone was blind)?
***Create 2 AOW questions of your own based on either article (or both). These too, will be worth 10
points apiece. Your questions should require the reader to use their critical thinking skills! Please
provide a separate answer sheet.
5.
6.