Australian Brainbee Challenge

The Australian Brain Bee Challenge (ABBC) is a competition for high school students in year 10 to learn about the brain and its functions, learn about neuroscience research, find out about careers in neuroscience and to dispel misconceptions about neurological and mental illnesses.

The program was started in Australia in 2006 to address a number of deficiencies in the public's perception of science in general, and neuroscience in particular.

The ABBC provides current and accurate information on the latest advances in neuroscience research, its value to the community, and promote careers in science and technology.

COVID-19 UPDATE

With regret the Brain Bee Executive announce that, given the current COVID-19 situation, the 2020 Brain Bee Challenge will end after Round 1 and will not proceed to any further rounds.

This decision was made after much deliberation and discussion and was driven by the concerns for the health and welfare of the students and teachers.

It is consistent with the decision of the International Brain Bee to cancel the 2020 international competition

Students are still encouraged to take part in the Round 1 quiz if they have not done so already. If students are working from home, the quiz can be run remotely at this time. It is important to try to have all students complete the task at the same time so that teachers can closely monitor their engagement through the Teacher Control Panel to ensure the integrity of the quiz.

All those students who successfully complete Round 1 will receive a personalised certificate. These will be sent to you after the Round 1 finish date. The Brain Bee Executive Team is currently working on finding a way to celebrate the achievements of the high performing students in the Round 1 assessment.

The Brain Bee Challenge Rounds
There are 4 rounds to the Australian Brain Bee Challenge;

Round 1 - Online Quiz
Teachers can enrol students for the competition through a dedicated link. Registration for 2021 opening soon!

Round 1 is held during Brain Awareness Week. The learning content is a series of online modules with content developed by brain science experts from the Australasian Neuroscience Society and implemented in a strong educational framework by education designers and teachers of the Education Perfect team.

Students study this material through Education Perfect (Brain Bee lessons can be found here: https://help.educationperfect.com/article/78-how-do-i-sign-students-up-for-the-brain-bee-challenge#enrol).

Please note that only the official EP Brain Bee folders will contain the assessment material and folders copied to school content libraries will not get any updated lessons.

They then complete an online in-class quiz to determine their knowledge and understanding of the structure and function of the brain.

The online quiz is hosted on the Education Perfect testing platform. Round 1 will take place for the entire month of March in 2021.

Further information on the structure of Round 1 can be found here.

Given the CoVID19 pandemic, to allow students to participate in the Brain Bee Challenge, the Brain Bee Executive team and Education Perfect have decided to allow students to take part in the Round 1 Brain Bee Challenge Quiz remotely provided that their teachers can monitor their engagement (see below).
This will still allow students to take part in the Challenge if their school has closed and the quiz is not able to be taken under exam conditions with teacher supervision.

Please note, that the quiz should still ideally be taken at the same time by all students so that teachers can monitor student engagement. The use of video conferencing software like Zoom could assist teachers in monitoring students, however, the platform does provide the 'Full Screen Monitor Mode' which will allow teachers to determine whether students have gone off task and left the assessment in real-time.

If you have any questions regarding how to run the Brain Bee Challenge Round 1 Quiz in your school's current situation, please feel free to get in touch with Education Perfect