How can a doctor look inside a person without cutting them open? If I had a super cool robot leg, would I be able to go inside an MRI machine? If I go into an MRI machine too many times will it make me sick? - All great questions asked by children during our visit to a primary school.
Children are naturally curious and love to explore. These qualities also lie at the heart of scientific discovery and innovation. It is important to encourage young inquiring minds and give them the analytical and physical tools to explore further.
Last month we grabbed our ilumr desktop MRI machine, a collection of its internal hardware, and a handful of awesome 3D prints (check out our MRI to STL blog post) and headed to a local primary school to talk about the wonderful world of medical imaging.
We started the session by discussing medical imaging and explaining the very basics of MRI. The students had a ton of stories about their experiences with medical imaging, some impressive knowledge to share about the human body, and endless number of fantastic questions.
In response to some of those questions, students learnt that MRI machines use signals to communicate with the hydrogen nuclei in a human's body, which allows doctors to see inside people without cutting them open. The big magnet that MRI machines use means that, unfortunately, super cool robot legs and any other magnetic metal will have to be removed before having an MRI scan. Furthermore, we learnt that, unlike Computed Tomography scanners or "the other big donut shaped machine", MRI does not use ionizing radiation, which makes it safe to have many scans during a person's lifetime.
After our main discussion, we moved onto the hands on portion of the session - getting to play with a real mini MRI machine! Everyone lined up excitedly and took turns imaging samples of their choice. Before the session, the students had foraged for samples in their school yard and were excited to see what was inside the items they had collected.
Desiccated bug corpses were a favorite and provided a great opportunity to walk students through the scientific method. Based on what they had just learnt about MRI, the children formed hypotheses on whether we would be able to get any signal from each bug. Most students voted that we wouldn't get much signal from a dried out cicada skin. A quick MRI experiment proved that their hypothesis was true. Learning success! The votes were split on whether we'd be able to get signal from a very large severed insect head. Much to everyone's delight, there was still a mysterious goop inside the insect's head which showed up brightly on the MRI.
While students waited to take a turn on the ilumr, we passed around 3D prints of MRI scans and let the students examine the radio frequency probes and gradient coils from inside the ilumr. This provided a great opportunity to discuss the engineering side of MRI.
I would say that our first outreach visit to a primary school was a success! One of my favorite parts of the visit was learning about the different things that excited each child and sparked their curiosity.
While some children took great delight in asking gory questions about medical procedures and hearing about mouse brains, other children just wanted to image some pretty flowers they found in the school yard. One child could barely contain their excitement when they heard that they would get to play with a real mini MRI machine, while another child had no interest in using the MRI machine at all and was much more interested in holding pieces of the ilumr's internal hardware and asking our production engineer an endless series of questions about building machines.
Every child is different. Embracing these differences, encouraging children's unique sets of interests, and providing them with the tools to pursue their curiosity is key to creating a diverse and flourishing scientific community and inspiring the next generation of experts.
We'd love to hear about your experience running scientific outreach events at schools!
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