Sensational Perceptions - Psychology Fair

Submitted by Corbin Schmidt
Phone: (907) 455-3847
04/13/04

Psychology students at University of Alaska Fairbanks and West Valley High School will co-host a fair entitled Sensational Perceptions in the Carol Brown Ballroom at the Wood Center 8:30-10:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 20. Sensational Perceptions will feature 26 booths with interactive, in-depth information about how sensory information and resulting perceptions shape our view of the world.

Dani Raap, associate professor of psychology at UAF and Joy Grubis, psychology teacher at WVHS developed goals and requirements for their respective spring semester psychology classes to work on a project together. Each student from Raap’s senior level Sensation and Perception class (PSY 470 at UAF) teamed up with one or two students from Grubis’ psychology class (elective at WVHS for juniors and seniors) to create a booth presenting some aspect of human senses and/or perceptual processes. The booths were to be designed as interactive, with information targeting a wide array of visitors.

As a community service component of the psychology degree at UAF, the ultimate goal of the project was for the students to develop a unique way to inform community members about the role senses and perceptions play in influencing people’s daily lives. Other benefits of the interaction between the two psychology classes include encouraging high school students to be excited about psychology, establishing a stronger network of resources between UAF and local high schools, establishing a mentorship for high school students in planning a major project across an entire semester, enhancing community support and involvement, and building life and academic skills such as creativity, teamwork, leadership, delegation, meeting deadlines, marketing and targeting a product for a diverse audience.

Sensational Perceptions will help people see the world in a different light by better understanding how sensations and perceptions really work, because, as the students point out, "Psychology is not all about Freud and psychoanalysis!"

CONTACT: UAF Psychology professor Dani Raap at (907) 474-6514, dani.raap@uaf.edu. This event is co-sponsored by American Legion Post 30.