BrainPlay: Serious Play, Serious Learning?

This study is a practice-based doctorate by artefact and exegesis. The artefact, Nous, is a board game designed for 10 to 12-year-old children to help them understand how the human brain attains, retains and processes sensory information. The exegesis contextualises the design of the game and discusses questions arising from the process of making Nous, from the conceptual emergence of the work as an early desire for children to toy with brain-making, through to children's considerations of playing a classroom game that introduces them to the anatomy of the brain and effective learning behaviours.