Where Theatre Meets Neuroscience: A One-of-a-Kind Class at ULethbridge

A unique summer class that brings together dramatic stagecraft and studies of the brain.

At the University of Lethbridge, learning doesn't stay in the classroom. In a unique summer course called Theatre for Scientific Purposes, fine arts and science students and professors work side by side on real-world brain research.

Instead of performing for an audience, drama students create and act out scenes for a neuroscience study exploring how we form and recall memories. These performances are recorded and used in fMRI brain scans to help researchers understand memory in everyday life.

Theatre for Scientific Purposes is a hands-on class that has fine arts students writing, designing and executing structured scenes in support of Dr. Chelsea Ekstrand's neuroscience research project.

"This course has put me in a unique professional context that is both challenging and rewarding," says multidisciplinary student Danica Sommer. "Working as a team, being flexible and delivering results under a time crunch are experiences both theatre professionals and scientific researchers are familiar with."

For neuroscience and drama student Zeth Stewart, the collaboration showed how science and the arts can fuel each other — and it became their favourite course they've taken at ULethbridge.

"As a student with a passion for both understanding human behaviour and theatrically expressing it, this class was a wonderful blend of empirical analysis and the subjective experience," he adds.

Blending arts and sciences

This kind of cross-disciplinary learning is part of ULethbridge's commitment to liberal education — helping students think in new ways, build unexpected skills and prepare for a future full of possibilities.

Dr. Ekstrand is studying how memories are formed and the processes used to retrieve memories in real-world environments. She received a $100,000 Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research grant in partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support her work.

"We can't forget that the arts are a fundamental part of life. This course brought those personal, lived experiences into the conversation in a meaningful way, while still grounding the discussion in the scientific method," Stewart says. "As a student with a passion for both understanding human behaviour and theatrically expressing it, this class was a wonderful blend of empirical analysis and the subjective experience."

Interested in innovative, cross-disciplinary learning? Explore programs at the University of Lethbridge and expand your horizons.