17

Cute AND Educational:

One day, Sara Bellum asked her teacher, “Mrs. Cortex, how do I think?”

Lightning speedy-quick, Mrs. Cortex drew a picture on the board. “This is your brain, Sara. You use your brain to think and to do lots of other things.”


“My brain?” asked Sara. “Where’s my brain?”

Mrs. Cortex drew a face around the picture. “Your brain is in your head, Sara.”

Sara put her hands on her head. “In here?” she asked. Mrs. Cortex nodded. “What else can my brain do?”

Lightning speedy-quick, Mrs. Cortex colored in four parts of her picture. “See this red part?” she asked. “This is your frontal lobe. It helps you think and lets you have feelings. This is the part of the brain you use when you’re happy or sad. Also, it helps you move.”

Sara did a little dance. “Like this?”

“Exactly. The green part is your parietal lobe. It lets you use your senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling.

“The blue part is your occipital lobe. It helps you see and read.”

“I love to read,” said Sara, thinking of her favorite book.

Mrs. Cortex pointed to the picture. “And this purple part is your temporal lobe. It help you hear and remember things.”

“Wow,” said Sara. “Your brain can do a LOT.”

“And that’s not all,” said Mrs. Cortex.

Lightning speedy-quick, Mrs. Cortex erased some of the colors in the picture. “At the top of the red part,” she said, “is Broca’s area. It helps you move so that you can talk.” Sara liked to talk to her friends (sometimes she even did it when she wasn’t supposed to… like during class!). “Also in the red part is your primary motor area. It is the special part of the frontal lobe that helps you move. And back in the green part is the somatasensory cortex. It works with all the muscles that work with your skeleton, called skeletal muscles.”

“Cool!” said Sara, who liked skeletons. “Can your brain do anything else?”

“Of course!” exclaimed Mrs. Cortex.

Lightning speedy-quick, Mrs. Cortex changed the colors of the picture again. “See this purple area? In here is Wernicke’s area. Because you have this part of your brain, you can understand what I’m saying when I talk to you.”

“What if I didn’t have one?” asked the curious Sara.

Mrs. Cortex smiled. “You wouldn’t be able to understand me. My words would seem like mush.”

Sara giggled and mumbled some mushy words. “Like that?”

“Yes, just like that,” said Mrs. Cortex.

“What else can your brain do?” asked Sara.

Lightning speedy-quick, Mrs. Cortex changed the colors of her picture. “In this part of your brain, there are a lot of little parts that do different jobs. Your hypothalamus helps you eat and drink and keeps your body temperature right.”

“Body temperature? Like when I have a fever?” asked Sara.

“Just like that,” said Mrs. Cortex. “When your body temperature is too hot, you have a fever, and that means you’re sick.

“Your amygdala also helps with your feelings.”

“Wait,” said Sara, confused. “I thought you said that your frontal lobe helped with
your feelings.”

“It does,” explained Mrs. Cortex. “But you also have feelings in your amygdala. Sometimes different parts of your brain have to help each other out. Just like your hippocampus—it isn’t the ONLY part of your brain that helps you remember things.
This part makes it so that you can remember things for a long time.”

“So I can remember things from when I was little?” asked Sara.

“Right,” said Mrs. Cortex.

“What else?”

Lightning speedy-quick, Mrs. Cortex changed the colors. “See this orange part?”

That’s your cerebellum. It helps you keep your balance and move your muscles.”

Sara stood on one foot while she listened.

“This purple part is your medulla oblongata. It helps you breathe and makes your heart beat. Put your hand over your heart and feel what your medulla oblongata does.”

Thump, thump, thump went Sara’s heart.

“What’s the yellow part?” asked Sara.

“That’s your corpus callosum. It connects the left side to the right side of your brain so they can work together.”
Sara was about to ask another question, but the bell rang for recess. “Can your brain do anything else?” she asked as Mrs. Cortex began to erase the pictures.

“Your brain can do lots more things!” said Mrs. Cortex. “But that’s for another day. Go outside with your friends.”

So with her head full of brains, Sara Bellum went out to play.