April 29, 2019
Acting Mayor Jack Young Joins Students for Reading on the Brain Art Project
Acting Baltimore City Mayor Jack Young joined 4th and 5th grade students at Callaway Elementary School to help paint a mural about the brain. It was all part of Reading on the Brain, a University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) program to teach young students about the importance of reading and how reading can stimulate brain development and inspire future success. Tracy Bale, PhD, is leading the pilot program, which also emphasizes science and helps children to understand how the brain works.
Reading on the Brain is held twice a month at Callaway Elementary. Building on the Baltimore City School’s literacy campaign, the program is promoting the benefits of reading as a means of positive brain stimulation. Studies using fMRI have demonstrated that reading stimulates mental imagery, language processing, and brain activity important in mental health and stress relief. Reading also helps the brain by building vocabulary, promoting better sleep, enhancing relationships, and improving test scores.
Acclaimed Baltimore artist Jay Wolf Schlossberg-Cohen is leading the interactive mural painting workshops, which deliver an important educational message about how reading improves brain development.
"This is really about making a difference with our kids. The idea is to have a project that will help spread the word to children and families, and we are doing it through art," says the artist. The mural will be 1800 square feet and will be hung at the school later in the year.
Professor Bale is Director of the UMSOM Center for the Epigenetic Research in Child Health and Brain Development (CERCH). The Center's mission is to facilitate translational research and community engagement important in child health and brain development, by focusing on the long-term consequences of stress and the environment on the developing brain.
About the University of Maryland School of Medicine
Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 43 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs; and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished recipient of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research. With an operating budget of more than $1 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically-based care for more than 1.2 million patients each year. The School has over 2,500 students, residents, and fellows, and more than $540 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding. As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total workforce of nearly 7,000 individuals. The combined School and Medical System (“University of Maryland Medicine”) has an annual budget of nearly $6 billion and an economic impact more than $15 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine faculty, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity, is an innovator in translational medicine, with 600 active patents and 24 start-up companies. The School works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit medschool.umaryland.edu/
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