OCEANA : education materials

Designers, teachers and researchers are coming together to create a multidisciplinary team and to engage in a “neuro-responsible” project: tools and content get scientific validation steps by creators of the program.

The Teaching Kit: 3 goals

1) apprehend

Most children have some concept of the brain, and what it does, but not all of this information is based on scientific evidence. Therefore, the first part of the OCEANA program aims to make children aware  of and encourage them to ask questions about their current knowledge of the brain, and then build up to teaching them, real, scientific information about how the brain. This approach to teaching is a cooperative way that enables an active involvement in the task of interest. Children interact with each other and their teachers, and come up with question to share with the class. By doing this, we get children interested, and start training them to think logically and creatively – we’re making them (very) young researchers!

2) understand

Playful tools had been created to bring the scientific knowledge in a non magistrate way to children. Vocabulary is introduce inside comics, story and games so it is better memorized.
Remain to the teacher to make the reading interactive. Notes that we offer more information that is necessary for the kids but it helps a deep understanding of concept which strengthen a long term knowledge memorization. However it remain important for the teacher to pin point essential points that he thinks matter.

3) regulate

Practical exercises and tips are proposed inside the teaching kit to learn how to regulate ones’ mental state. They are of multiple type depending of the concept taught, but all were selected from studies showing a positive effect. Do not hesitate to makes children practice even after the teaching is over. 

Kit content

The teaching kit have 17 sessions of about 1h teaching (minimum). It’s up to you to adapt it to fit your way of teaching. You can make more sessions of shorter length. You can use session in a different order or choose those that matter to you. You can take more time between session to make practice tips longer before switching to another concept.

We offer you a guideline, but you can also see it as a menu.

In the kit we introduce:

  • stress
  • neurobiology: neurons, their communication, what is it to “learn”?
  • cognitive functions linked to learning: memory, attention, inhibition/control, emotions
  • needs of the brain: food, sleep, sport …
To do this we are using:
  • a tale
  • comics (11)
  • games (4)
  • collaborative activities of discovery
  • practical activities

After the completion of this program, we aim for children to have experienced a high level of neuroscientific knowledge, and to be better equipped to engage in exercises to apply this newly acquired knowledge.