This is International Brain Awareness week and together we are again working across Canada to encourage kids to value their brains. Please see the news release below which notes our first-time federal government financial support for the ThinkFirst Brain Day program.
Get your brain in gear!
ThinkFirst Canada presents Brain Day across Canada
Toronto, ON – March 15, 2011: Injury is the leading killer of Canadian children and youth and more than half of these deaths are from brain injury. Prevention is the only cure. March 14th marks the start of international Brain Awareness Week, a unique partnership of more than 1,700 organizations in 57 countries. In Canada, ThinkFirst Canada is teaching children to use their brains to protect their bodies by presenting the ThinkFirst Brain Day program in schools this spring.
Brain Day is a hands-on, half-day program presented in classrooms from coast to coast. It shows students how their brains work, what happens when the brain is damaged and how they can protect themselves from a brain injury. Classrooms become laboratories as students conduct scientific experiments on the five senses. The program is delivered by hundreds of ThinkFirst Canada Chapter volunteers, teachers and student presenters from universities across Canada.
When students are in the classroom for a Brain Day presentation and outside enjoying March Break, “ThinkFirst reminds Canadians that the brain is fragile,” says Rebecca Nesdale-Tucker, executive director of ThinkFirst Canada. “When kids are playing hockey, biking or tobogganing, it’s vital that we all adopt life-saving injury prevention habits, including wearing a properly fitted helmet.
Prevention doesn’t mean hibernation. It means getting trained, wearing the gear, and using your brain to navigate risks” says national program coordinator Deirdre Dimitroff.
To learn more about injury prevention and the work of ThinkFirst Canada visit thinkfirst.ca.
This year thanks to support from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Brain Day Teaching Kits will be created as self contained Brain Day Modules. These kits have been designed to serve communities not being reached by the university and Chapter delivered Brain Day. The kits will be available free of charge to hundreds of classrooms across Canada. To find out more please visit brainday.ca.
