By Megha Lakha
It actually makes a lot of sense that Lovett will be offering a brand new science course next year: Neuroscience. Dr. Lamar, who proposed the class, got a PhD in Neuroscience at Emory.
I had heard lots of teachers talking about the new Neuroscience course next year and wanted to ask Dr. Lamar for some details. Dr. Lamar explained that she has been talking about adding the course since she arrived at Lovett in the fall of 2016. She told me that “there wasn’t enough curriculum space until now.”
Dr Lamar has “always been interested in the brain” and her “dream class as a kid would’ve been studying something about the brain and how it works.” So naturally, she thought it would be fulfilling to add the course to students at Lovett.
Ms. Blake, the Chair of the Science Department, said “Dr. Lamar was really the brains behind developing the course and is super knowledgeable.” Ms. Blake said that Dr. Lamar “basically came up with the entire outline” while Ms. Blake “mostly helped with logistics like the duration of the course, budget, and things like that.”
Dr. Lamar is excited about the prospect of veering away from the Psychology route, as that subject is already offered, and focusing on other aspects of the brain. She noted that “there are diseases that have known mechanisms in Neuroscience…but we don’t tap into them on the Psychology level.”
Ms. Blake thinks that the class “is going to be an interesting addition to the Science electives because it’s a combination of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, so it’s interdisciplinary.”
The class will most likely be offered during two periods (at least that’s what the Science Department is preparing for as of right now), but this could change depending on how many students sign up for the course.
The course will be year-long. It will be open to Juniors and Seniors and will be an on-level course. “There will obviously be some challenging elements to the course because studying the brain is hard,” Dr. Lamar added.
The class will be pretty hands-on. One thing Dr. Lamar is especially excited about is “getting new sensors for labs with neurons.” She said the class “will explore, study, and measure some stuff with these sensors.” They will also be able to perform some harmless tests on actual students in the class. In addition, the class will do some “brain dissections” and “sensory labs.”
Overall, this course seems like something fresh and new where students interested in the brain can geek out about all of things Neuroscience. Dr. Lamar mentioned that when she was in high school she was definitely one of the kids more interested in this topic, so she will bring some necessary passion to the course.
