How do we learn?

How do children learn? It's one of the most basic questions we can ask about the human mind, but one of the most difficult to answer. Each year the School of Psychology and the Learning Sciences Research Institute at The University of Nottingham host an event which attempts to answer it — and academics are now on the lookout for children aged between four and 11 to help them. The 2010 Summer Scientist Week takes place from August 16 to 20 in the Exchange Building on Jubilee Campus. Child volunteers and their parents are asked to spend half a day at the event, playing different games that help the researchers understand how we learn and how our brains develop. There are also fun activities such as computer games and face painting to keep children entertained. Research projects this year include 'Millions of Marbles', which looks at how children learn about the meaning of numbers, and 'Eye Spider!' which looks at how quickly children anticipate actions by monitoring their eye movements. This is the fourth year that researchers have run the event, with numbers of child volunteers increasing year on year.