by Tarja Gordienko
The brain is the epicentre of all our activities, making brain health essential for individuals of all ages. To promote this critical aspect of health, the European Academy of Neurology initiated the Brain Health School Challenge, which has been actively championed in Finland by Neurocenter Finland and the Finnish Neurological Society.
The Finnish Brain Health School Challenge was launched in January at the Educa fair – Finland’s leading event for the education and training sector. The challenge was actively promoted through social media channels and teachers were also offered possibility to have official short course related brain functions at the university. A total of 12 schools from across Finland participated in the challenge, resulting in five winners, from all over Finland! In the elementary school category, Kultavuori School in Orivesi won first place. In the secondary school category, Pieksämäki High School ranked first. Both schools’ entries stood out for their creativity and clear messages. The first-place winners expressed their excitement, as some students were visiting Helsinki for the first time to attend the awards ceremony at Helsinki City Hall on May 14, 2024.
Jyväskylä’s Steinerkoulu took second place in the primary school series and Helsinki Business College in the secondary school series. In addition, Ammattiopisto Spesia’s Hel-Tuva students received a special award, for one of the most creative entries in this national challenge. They promoted the excellent idea of having your own ‘Brain power sentence’, like ‘Love your brain is all you need.’
“A healthy brain produces a healthy and fun life”
All elementary and middle schools and secondary school students were invited to the brain health challenge. As a competition, schoolchildren come up with ideas for posters, social media videos, campaigns, messages printed on t-shirts and other creative implementations, telling about the importance of brain health and giving advice how to take care of the brain.
The winning work of the Kultavuueri school was the 8-minute video “Matti’s and Maija’s Brain Day”. All 18 students of the class participated in making the characters and backgrounds of the video, designing and recording the texts, and animating. The video was worked on as part of the “Me as a person” section of environmental studies, as well as in visual arts and Finnish language classes. Inspired by the challenge, the students worked on a Kahoot version of the video for a game-based learning environment (watch the video).
“The Brain Health School Challenge conquered both students and teachers at our school and showed the power of experiential learning! The most efficient way of learning is when you can come up with the ideas and complete them by yourself. After the hard work that included many work phases, it was a great moment to show the finished work as a film to the whole school. And when the news of us winning came, the joy literally exploded! The winning amount is a nice nest egg to use for camp school or a class trip,” class teacher Ulpu Siponen sums up the atmosphere of Kultavuori school.
The Brain Health School Challenge has also been implemented successfully in Austria and is now expanding to other European countries. The annual challenge campaign will be held in Finland next school year as well!
The Brain Health Mission and the European Academy of Neurology extend their heartfelt congratulations to the winning classes for their outstanding achievements and thank all participating classes for their exceptional efforts.
