AP Psychology: Halloween Brain Anatomy Summative
Teaching AP Psychology? Need a fun and creative summative for Unit 1: Biological Bases of Behavior covering brain anatomy and nervous systems? Does your admin want lots of posters decorating your walls? (Or perhaps you are very into the season and love bewitching your classroom). Here’s a perfect summative to meet all those goals: Diagnosing Zombie Brains!
Diagnosing Zombie Brains
Have students create an infographic describing a scenario in which zombies exist:
Scenario: There are reports of large numbers of individuals being “infected” by something that turns them into zombies. Infected individuals lack most cognitive skills, feel little to no pain, and have decreased motor or coordinative muscle movements. They can, however, see, hear, touch, smell, and groan. The infected or dead also seek to devour the living, even people they used to know and love, without an ounce of empathy. They seem to pay particular attention to the spinal column and central nervous system which they think taste best, yet they never seem to feel satisfied and are always hungry. Since they never sleep, so humans need to be careful about travelling at all times.
Task
- Describe at least 4 Brain regions that are damaged.
- Describe at least 4 other parts of the nervous system that are damaged (e.g. things like somatic nervous system, hormones, neurotransmitters, or glands).
- Describe at least 3 brain regions that remain functioning normally in zombies.
For each area described, provide proof that the area is damaged or intact by comparing it to the function of normal, healthy humans.
Brain Anatomy and Nervous Systems Halloween Results
You can see students did more than just memorize brain anatomy and function. They had to use critical thinking, “Zombies like the taste of brains? So the parietal lobe is damaged, and yet they can not feel pain, so it can’t be that the whole lobe is gone, but perhaps just the somatosensory strip is damaged, or perhaps they lack Substance-P?” My students were already familiar with brain anatomy through creative and fun activities, having already learned brain anatomy through the AP Psychology Unit 1: Biological Basis of Behavior & Nervous Systems Battle Game as a formative assessment. This simply reversed the process: Instead of enhancing brain areas as they previously had, looking at what would happen when areas were removed or damaged.
Halloween Murder Mystery for AP Psychology
If you want a Halloween activity that can reenforce concepts of the scientific method from Unit 0, the kinds of thing you might expect on the AAQ, you can try an AAQ-focused murder mystery in which students gather pieces of evidence from a scientific study and investigate the ethical guidelines used, the generalizability of the study, operational definitions, and determine if the suspect is guilty or innocent.
There’s even a second AP Psychology murder mystery specifically designed to help with the EBQ, drawing on Unit 2‘s concepts of perception and memory.
Free Resources for AP Psychology
If you just need to review some AP Psychology concepts and are looking for some free resources (Halloween related or not), there’s a free EBQ from Unit 4, a free unit on Heredity from Unit 1 (which you’ll need to teach before you teach Brain Anatomy for the Zombie Brains activity). If you are looking for strategies to get a perfect score on the AAQ and EBQ, check out our previous blog on the AAQ HERE and our blog on the EBQ HERE.
Are you ready for A Halloween-themed AP Psychology Class?
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AP Psychology 2024/2025 full course bundle
AP Psychology Unit 1: Brain Anatomy Battle Activity
AP Psychology Unit 0: AAQ Murder Mystery
AP Psychology Unit 2: EBQ Murder Mystery
