Skip to content

Adolescent Brain Vulnerability Explorer

Run the Adolescent Brain Vulnerability Explorer MicroSim Fullscreen

You can embed this MicroSim in your own course website with this iframe:

<iframe src="./main.html" width="100%" height="502px" scrolling="no"></iframe>

About this MicroSim

Adolescent Brain Vulnerability Explorer is an interactive MicroSim for this health-education textbook.

Students evaluate documented brain-function effects of

Use the controls in the panel below the drawing to interact with the model, then talk through what changed and why. The MicroSim is width-responsive and can be embedded in any course page with the iframe shown above.

Bloom's Taxonomy level: Evaluate (L5) — evaluate, judge, assess

Lesson Plan

Audience

This MicroSim is designed for Grades 9-12. For the K-3 bands the teacher typically drives the activity on a shared screen; older students can explore the MicroSim independently.

Learning Objective

Students evaluate documented brain-function effects of

This activity targets Bloom's Evaluate (L5) (evaluate, judge, assess).

Suggested Use (about 10 minutes)

  1. Warm up (2 min). Ask students what they already know about the topic and let one volunteer describe what they see on the screen.
  2. Model it (3 min). Demonstrate the interaction once, thinking aloud so students hear the reasoning behind each choice.
  3. Guided practice (3 min). Invite students to try the interaction and to predict what will happen before they act.
  4. Discuss (2 min). Ask why the result came out the way it did, connecting the on-screen result back to the learning objective above.

Check for Understanding

Have each student (or pair) explain their result in one sentence, using the vocabulary from this chapter. Look for reasoning that matches the Evaluate-level objective rather than a lucky guess.

Specification

The full specification below was extracted from Chapter 10: Substances - Effects and Safer Choices.

Type: microsim

**sim-id:** adolescent-brain-vulnerability-explorer<br/>
**Library:** p5.js<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Bloom Taxonomy Level: Evaluate (L5)
Bloom Verb: evaluate, judge, assess

Learning objective: Students evaluate documented brain-function effects of
nicotine/vaping, cannabis, and alcohol on adolescent brain regions
(prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, reward system), and judge the relative
severity of each effect using research-based descriptions rather than
scare language.

Canvas layout:
- Left (50%): a simplified labeled brain diagram with three clickable
  regions — prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, reward system
- Right (50%): a substance selector (Nicotine/Vaping, Cannabis, Alcohol)
  and an infobox panel

Data Visibility Requirements:
  Stage 1: Learner selects a substance from the selector
  Stage 2: Learner clicks a brain region; infobox shows the specific,
  research-based effect of that substance on that region, citing the
  general finding (e.g., NIDA, CDC) without unverifiable statistics
  Stage 3: A "Compare All Three" button reveals a side-by-side summary
  table of all nine substance-region combinations
  Stage 4: Closing panel reinforces the shared underlying mechanism: a
  still-maturing brain amplifies each substance's effect relative to a
  mature adult brain

Interactive controls:
- Substance selector (radio buttons or dropdown)
- Clickable brain regions
- Button: "Compare All Three"
- Button: "Reset"

Default parameters: No substance selected initially; prompt reads "Select
a substance, then click a brain region to see its documented effect."

Instructional Rationale: Evaluating the relative severity and mechanism of
different substances on specific brain regions requires judging evidence
across categories, an Evaluate-level task; a selector-plus-region-click
interface lets learners construct their own comparisons rather than
passively reading a single fixed chart, while the compare view supports
synthesis across all combinations.

Implementation notes: p5.js; effect text stored in a structured
substance-by-region lookup object grounded in NIDA/CDC adolescent-brain
research summaries; no depiction of any product, device, or method of use —
only labeled brain regions and effect text. Responsive canvas.

References