More than 130 of the smartest high school students from Queensland and the Northern Territory will converge on the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) next week to contest state and territory crowns in the State Finals of the 2011 Australian Brain Bee Challenge.
Drawn from 41 different schools, the students will have travelled from as far afield as Cooktown and Wooree in Queensland to Katherine and Humpty Do in the Northern Territory to fight it out for the title.
The intense competition on Tuesday 19 July 2011 will test their knowledge on a range of topics, including brain anatomy, intelligence, memory, sleep and disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and will culminate in a live question and answer session.
Guest speakers will include Dr Jim Peacock, Chair of the CSIRO Science Team and Science in Schools Patron.
QBI Professor Justin Marshall, whose undersea work regularly features on science shows including the ABC’s Catalyst, will also speak on the subject of ‘Neuro-ecology: Doing Neuroscience out in Nature’.
Competitors will have the opportunity to tour QBI’s neuroscience laboratories and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) facilities during breaks in competition.
Media Contact: Denise Cullen
Executive Communications Officer
Tel: 07 3346 6434
Email: d.cullen2@uq.edu.au
Australian Brain Bee Challenge
The Australian Brain Bee Challenge (ABBC) is the country’s largest neuroscience competition for high school students. The competition is designed to test school students’ knowledge about a range of topics, including intelligence, memory, emotions, sleep, Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. This year, 5,629 students from 305 schools took part.
Queensland Brain Institute
The Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) was established as a research institute of The University of Queensland in 2003. The Institute is now operating out of an AUD63 million state-of-the-art facility which houses 33 principal investigators with strong international reputations. QBI is one of the largest neuroscience institutes in the world dedicated to understanding the mechanisms underlying brain function.
