We have a special visitor on campus this month: Sana Khan, a senior at Wellesley College. Sana is conducting a research project as part of her honors thesis program in neuroscience with the help of CRS sixth and seventh grade students.
Sana’s research involves working with a neuroscience lab at MIT to support a study called Project Prakash. Project Prakash focuses on vision development and the brain with an overarching mission to “bring light into the lives of curably blind children and, in so doing, illuminate some fundamental scientific questions about how the brain develops and learns to see.” The project has collected data from people ages 7 – 25, performing the same research Sana is working on with CRS. Work being done in Charles River School’s Founders House includes investigation on visual motor abilities, perception, and acuity. Tests are being conducted to study grasping aperture and to match and identify objects with and without blurred vision. Working with Sana, students at CRS will help the study to bridge the gap of understanding about the visual grasping capacity of 7 – 13 year olds. By working directly with a researcher, students enjoy experiential, individualized learning. Deeper understanding, Higher achievement!